


An Accord

by von_gelmini



Series: MCU Kink Bingo Round 4 [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Anal Sex, Cheating, Closeted Character, Clothed Sex, College Student Peter Parker, Domestic Nightmare Tony Stark, Domesticity, Happy Ending, M/M, Nightmares, Oral Sex, Past Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Peter Parker is legal age in the state of New York, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reconciliation, Takes place about 2 years after Civil War, WinterIronSpider
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:34:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 30,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22556401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/von_gelmini/pseuds/von_gelmini
Summary: “That’s the thing about forgiveness, Sergeant Barnes,” Peter said, putting a light kiss on Tony’s temple. “It’s given, not earned.”
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Peter Parker, James "Bucky" Barnes/Peter Parker/Tony Stark, James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark, Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Series: MCU Kink Bingo Round 4 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1632193
Comments: 129
Kudos: 286
Collections: MCU Kink Bingo Round 4





	1. A pretty piece of tail

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the MCU Kink Bingo as my fill for "Clothed Sex". Said clothed sex begins happening in chapter 6.
> 
> * * *

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You got a spare room up there, Stark? There isn’t room for me, Steve, and his self-righteousness in his bed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Let FRIDAY answer it,” Peter said muzzily, curling up tighter into Tony’s side. But Tony’s side wasn’t there anymore.

Tony was already half out of the bed. “That’s the penthouse buzzer, babe.”

“I know what it is. Come back to bed.”

“Yeah?” Tony said loudly as he pulled on his dressing gown. “Who is it?” FRIDAY relayed his voice down through the intercom.

“You got a spare room up there, Stark? There isn’t room for me, Steve, and his self-righteousness in his bed.”

“Barnes‽” Tony’s eyes went wide. He tried to stifle a giggle and failed.

“Stark?” Bucky sounded unsure, given the sound he just heard.

“Yeah, yeah. It’s me. Let him up, Fri.”

“No,” Peter said, stumbling out of the bedroom, his sleep pants only half pulled on straight, one hip bone jutting prominently out of the waistband. “No late night Avengers, Tony. I am not pretending to sleep in the guest room again.”

Tony caught Peter around the waist and settled him into his lap on the sofa. “I promised you that would never happen again. It’s not an Avenger, it’s Barnes.”

“What‽” Peter nearly jumped off of Tony’s lap, but Tony held him there.

“Let’s hear him out. This sounds good.”

The elevator disgorged Barnes with his standard Army issue (circa 1945, courtesy of the surplus store, circa 2018) duffle slung over his shoulder. He took in the scene on the sofa and shrugged, dropping his pack.

“So?” Tony asked. “It had to be pretty good to think you’d be more welcome here than there.”

Bucky flung himself into a chair that was at an angle to the sofa. “Might as well try here. Can’t get any colder than over there.”

“I thought you and Captain Rogers were…” Peter started.

_“Were.”_

“What the hell happened? He damn near killed me in your defense,” Tony said, a little more bitterly than he’d intended.

“Yeah, well, sorry. Information was kinda light on the ground back then and I’d only been me for a little while.”

“Wakanda get rid of the other guy?” Tony asked skeptically.

Bucky nodded. “I wouldn’t have left otherwise. I won’t put anyone in danger,” he said quietly.

“But you and Cap…” Peter tried to ask again.

“Found out that the ‘end of the line’ is the dotted line on which I signed the Accords yesterday afternoon.” 

“Where is he, are they, were you, whatever,” Tony said with an eyeroll.

“Not here,” Bucky said. “If you taking me in is reliant on me telling you where they are…”

“Sit your ass back down,” Tony said. “I honestly couldn’t give a fuck where they are. I just want to make sure they’re not anywhere around here thinking about starting shit up again.”

“Sorry,” Bucky said again. “That was all my fault.”

“Yeah, no. You’re a pretty piece of tail…”

Peter leaned back and looked at Tony’s face with shock at both the assessment and the term.

Tony ignored him, well, almost ignored him. A little smirk might’ve crept out. “…and I can see why Steve chased you down, but Steve refused to sign _before_ he knew where you were.”

“The ‘tail’ isn’t pretty enough apparently,” Bucky said. “I thought the reason you guys fell out was over me.”

“Nope. You’re the reason I won’t take him back into the fold.” Tony shrugged. “That’s not it, either. You…” Tony breathed in slowly, deeply, and his eyes closed a moment. Peter’s hand slipped around his shoulder and rubbed small circles at the base of his neck. After a moment, Tony opened his eyes. “You weren’t _you._ Cap? He has no excuse for lying to me.” He ran his hand over Peter’s thigh, soothing himself with the soft fabric and the solidness of the boy he loved underneath it. “You get to walk through that door and be heard. He doesn’t.”

“Thank you,” Bucky said. “I don’t deserve it.”

“That’s the thing about forgiveness, Sergeant Barnes,” Peter said, putting a light kiss on Tony’s temple. “It’s given, not earned.”

“Listen to the teenager who thinks he’s wiser than the old men in the room,” Tony said, smiling, teasing.

“Yes, listen to the teenager in the room who _knows_ he’s wiser than the old men in the room. God!” Peter rolled his eyes.

Bucky chuckled. “He looks like you when he does that.”

“I do not!”

Tony laughed. “Yes you do. I told you you did. Now we have outside confirmation! So there!”

Peter ducked his head. “You don’t disapprove?”

“Of you and Stark?” Bucky asked. Peter nodded. “First, it’s not my life. I don’t get to approve or disapprove. Second, I’d be a fuckin’ hypocrite if I said anything about a kid getting his first experiences with someone older,” he added with a knowing wink.

“Oh my god! It’s not like that!” Peter said.

“It’s not? Oh. Sorry.” Bucky shrugged. “It was for me and Mrs. Goldstein in 23A. Lasted about three months until she said I was getting ‘clingy’.” He grinned. “Long enough for me to learn what I needed to. But she wasn’t _quite_ as old as he is. And she still had her looks.”

Peter looked worried that Tony might take offense. He seemed to be considering it. But then he laughed. “Oh god, I bet Rogers _loves_ your sense of humor.”

“A long, _long_ time ago he did. Lost that fondness even before he went into the ice,” Bucky said, a little sadly.

“More wisdom from the teenager?” Peter offered. “Like I tell Tony. Going back never works. Only forward.”

“You gave me something to go forward to, baby,” Tony said, squeezing his arm around Peter’s waist. “But the kid’s right. Even if he hadn’t been there, it would’ve been nothing but bad news if I’d chased after Pepper _yet again.”_ He sighed. “Letting go is hard, when someone’s become a habit.”

Bucky nodded. “It’s… I didn’t think it would be the _same._ It wasn’t even the same when it was. But… he’s,” Bucky sighed, “changed.”

“Look, it’s late. I don’t know where you came in from, but it’s late here and if you’re jetlagged, you need to get on East Coast time.” Tony kissed Peter on the cheek. “Let me get Barnes settled and I’ll be in in a few.”

“Okay Tony.” Peter turned to Bucky. “I’m glad you’re not upset about us.”

“No problem kid.”

“Ugh, another one to call me that,” Peter muttered as he padded off to Tony’s bedroom. 

~~~~~

“Thanks for the room, Stark,” Bucky said when Tony showed him to the largest of the guest rooms. 

“You’re going to be sharing a roof with me, it’s Tony.”

“Bucky,” he said, reaching out to shake Tony’s hand.

Tony took it. “You grandfathers with your odd rituals,” he laughed.

“Go fuck your child bride, Tony. I’m tired.” Bucky said grinning as he shut the door.

~~~~~

“Who would’ve thought?” Peter asked when Tony slid back under the covers with him.

“That Rogers would be unliveable with?” Tony raised his hand. 

“Yeah, but Cap tore _everything_ apart for him!”

“That’s a nice love story, babe, but Rogers tore everything apart for himself. Every single thing he did since…” Tony shook his head and gave a half-shrug. “Ever, has been for no one but himself.” He scoffed. “And he calls me a walking ego. Who’s stuck around to hold together Fury’s boy band with string and bailing wire while Rogers fucks off to god only knows where?” He rolled his eyes. “Whatever. It’s too late to fight the aftermath of Cap’s latest disaster. C’mere.” He smiled at Peter and held his arms wide. 

~~~~~

“Dear god, pretty, you cook!” Tony said, stumbling out of the bedroom in nothing but boxers, scrubbing at his face. “Don’t touch the coffee!”

Tony ran to close the distance and grabbed the bag of beans out of Bucky’s hand. He ground them and started a pot of drip brewing. That was for Peter. Who no matter how hard Tony tried, was still a philistine when it came to coffee. Then he dug the good stuff out of the cabinet and started making his espresso. “Good coffee’s a little more difficult than boiling grounds with eggshells, pretty.” Peter emerged from the hallway, almost sleepwalking. “Mornin’ beautiful,” Tony said, planting a kiss on the top of Peter’s rumpled curls. 

_“You_ didn’t cook,” Peter said to Tony. He sniffed the air, his eyes still mostly unopened, as he sat at the counter.

“That would be me,” Bucky said, putting a plate in front of Peter at the kitchen stool.

“Are you complaining about my culinary expertise?” Tony said, miffed.

“Not at all, Tony. I’m sure you and May will open your own restaurant any day now.

“Shut up and drink your coffee flavored milk syrup.” Tony sat a mug in front of Peter. 

Peter opened one eye fully and looked back and forth between the two men. “One to feed me food, one to feed me caffeine… I could grow to like this arrangement,” he said teasingly.

“There isn’t enough coffee in that to count as caffeine,” Tony said as he prepared his second espresso shot of the morning. “Want some?” he asked, taking a second cup of the shelf and putting it under the spout next to his.

“Italian coffee? Yes please.”

Food and drink arranged, the three of them spread out at the counter. Peter on one side of Tony, Bucky on the other.

Peter finished first. He put his plate in the sink. “He cooks, he can stay.”

Tony got up, glared at Peter as he _very pointedly_ put his plate in the dishwasher. “He cooks like that every day, he can’t stay. I have a heart condition. That much bacon will kill me.”

Peter laughed and grabbed another piece. “I have no idea how long spiders live, so I’ll eat all of yours.” He stopped suddenly. “Oh fuck.”

“Spider’s out of the bag now, kid,” Tony said.

“You didn’t hear that, right?” Peter asked, ducking his head.

Bucky got up and added his plate to the sink, earning himself a glare that matched the one Tony gave Peter. “Hear what? That you’re Spider-Man? Been knowing that, kid. All the rogues do.”

“Oh god,” Peter said in a small voice.

“It’s okay, Pete,” Tony said, putting his hand on Peter’s shoulder. “They’re off the reservation, but they’re still Avengers. No one will tell.”

“Tony’s right. Your secret’s safe.”

“I’ve got class until four thirty today. It’s the stupid senior requirement for my early entrant program.” 

“I’m sorry, kid. I got you into Columbia early. Got you into 200s in chemistry, but the state of New York requirements, those I couldn’t get you out of.”

“It’s okay, Tony,” Peter said, giving the man a kiss. “I just get bored.”

Tony turned back to the kitchen once the elevator door shut behind Peter. “Does no one know how to wash a dish in this place?”

Bucky plopped on the sofa. “I cooked, someone else cleans.”

Tony flung a dishcloth at his head. Bucky flung it back and Tony loaded the dishwasher. “So, you wanna tell me what happened?” he asked.

Bucky sighed and turned sideways, looking over the back of the sofa into the kitchen. “There’s dissention in the ranks of the rogues. Ever since Vision took up with Wanda. And no, I won’t tell you where they are.”

“Didn’t ask.”

“They’re leaning toward coming in and signing. Natalia too. Barton’s missing and presumed back with his family thanks to Fury. So that left Scott, Sam, Steve, and me. Scott’s taking the government’s deal of house arrest so he can be with his daughter. Steve thought he had me and Sam solidly behind him still. I signed yesterday afternoon with stipulations.”

“What stipulations?” Tony asked, sitting at the other end of the sofa.

“Better than I deserved.”

“What were they?”

“Regular psych evals, check-ins and clearing by the doctors in Wakanda.”

“And?”

Bucky winced. “A full debrief by Ross.”

“No.”

“What?”

“I said — no.”

“It was part of the agreement I signed,” Bucky explained.

“And, I said, no,” Tony repeated. “If you’re brought in as an Avenger your debrief can be handled by Fury. I can track his secrets. Everett Ross? I can track him, but he’s a fuckin’ weasel. Fury’s an honorable man. Mostly. What’s in that pretty head,” Tony pointed at Bucky, “does not go any farther than Avengers HQ.”

“I signed, Tony.”

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t be debriefed, I’m just proposing an amendment as to who should do the debriefing.” He stood and patted Bucky’s metal arm. “And by ‘proposing’, I mean ‘demanding’.” He took out his phone and headed back to his room.

Bucky followed. “I didn’t try to hide when I came here. They’ll come to get me.”

Tony scoffed. “Let them try.” 

Bucky looked about to object again. 

Tony stopped him. “Do you _know_ what I used to make for a living?” Bucky nodded. “And what opened up about three hundred feet above us?” Another nod. “Do you really think I would park this ass, of which I am _inordinately_ fond, in just another shiny New York skyscraper?” Bucky’s eyes widened. “Let. Them. Try.” Tony smiled as he went to shut his bedroom door. “Go watch a movie or two. This might take awhile.”


	2. The pass-code to the penthouse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh. My. God. Old man stereo.” Peter disentangled himself from Tony’s hold. “Feed me.” Bucky started to rise. “Sit down, Bucky. I didn’t say cook. I told him to feed me. Feed _US.”_

A movie and a half later, Tony sat on the other end of the sofa from Bucky. “Taken care of. Tomorrow you’ll meet Fury up at HQ.”

“It’ll take more than one day,” Bucky said quietly. “There were a lot of missions.”

Tony nodded.

“I remember all of them, Tony. I’m sorry.”

It was still hard for Tony to reconcile the raw emotion of what happened with the knowledge that the man sitting next to him was _not_ the man in that videotape. “I know, Bucky. I’m getting there, okay?”

“Okay.”

“You’ll head upstate for a few hours a day until it’s finished. Either Fury or Maria Hill will handle the debrief personally. Whatever Ross finds out will be filtered through them, cross-checked by FRIDAY, gone over by me, and then given back to Fury to release.”

“They agreed to that?”

Tony laughed. “Of course not. It’s all going directly from Fury to Ross, with not a single stop in between.”

Bucky was quiet for a long time and they both pretended to watch the movie. “Steve underestimated you.”

“You think?”

They watched the movie until its end. “Didn’t peg you for a rom-com man, Bucky,” Tony said smiling.

“War movies kinda lost their charm.”

“Overly realistic sci-fi ones lost theirs for me,” Tony countered.

“Drama… I live enough of that lately.”

“Ditto action.”

“Romance never gets old,” Bucky said finally.

“God, are you two getting weepy over Tom Hanks movies?” Peter said, laughing and landing in Tony’s lap once he dropped his backpack by the elevator.

“You told me you liked that I’m a romantic,” Tony said, kissing Peter lightly on the lips.

“Yes, but…” Peter picked up the remote, clicked, and brought up the title. “Sleepless in Seattle?”

“Shut up, kid.”

“Shut up, kid.”

“Oh. My. God. Old man stereo.” Peter disentangled himself from Tony’s hold. “Feed me.” Bucky started to rise. “Sit down, Bucky. I didn’t say cook. I told him to feed me. Feed _US.”_

“Take out?”

“Take me… us… out.”

“Your house is full of food, Tony,” Bucky said. “Take your boyfriend out to dinner, I’ll be fine.”

“I said, feed US,” Peter hollered back from the bedroom.

“Thai?” Tony suggested.

“Thai.” Peter agreed, coming back, tugging on a fresh shirt.

“Chinese?” Bucky countered.

“Thai wasn’t a thing in your day?” Peter asked.

“In Thailand it was. Not in Manhattan.”

Tony laughed. “How long has it been since you were here… that _you_ remember?”

“Uh… Forty-three? I’ve been here since, and I remember, but it wasn’t to sample the cuisine. Back in forty-three, pretty much everyone still called it Siam, even though it had changed already. But by any name, there weren’t any restaurants serving that kind of food. Chinese was the closest.”

“I doubt spending the last year, since Wakanda, on the run with Rogers broadened your horizons.”

“Not really.”

“Thai then,” Peter insisted.

“Yes, but proper Thai. We’re not dragging our new guest to that place you and May like.”

“Fine. Rich people Thai.”

“Yes, _Thai._ Not Thai by way of American Cantonese and whichever Korean guy they have working the kitchen today.”

Bucky smiled at the couple, arguing as they wandered back and forth from the bedroom to the living room, various bits of clothes flying while they changed.

“There.” Peter said, finally dressed in much the same as he’d started out in.

“Ready?” Tony asked Bucky.

“We can just… go out?” He’d spent all of his time, since he escaped from HYDRA, on the run. The idea of just being able to walk outside the door and go to a restaurant was unbelievable.

“Well, yeah,” Peter said.

“It can be a bit of a zoo once I’m recognized,” Tony admitted. “But that’s why I get driven even though it’s only a few blocks away, and I’ll have security there.”

“Iron Man needs security?” Bucky asked, arching an eyebrow.

“No, Iron Man does _not_ need security,” Tony said sharply. “However Tony Stark, the fifth richest man in the world and New York celebrity needs security. Unless you fancy being mobbed by everyone with a cellphone.”

“Not fun,” Peter said sagely.

Happy was waiting with the Rolls outside Tony’s private elevator in the garage when the three of them arrived.

“Bucky, this is Happy Hogan. Head of Security for Stark Industries, but I also make him be my driver and pilot still. He tolerates it because I’m so loveable. Happy, Bucky Barnes. He’s staying with Peter and I for awhile.”

“Mr. Hogan.”

“Sergeant Barnes.”

“Can we not? It wasn’t him. It was someone else. I’m… getting over it. I appreciate my defense squad, Happy, but save the death glare for Rogers if he ever shows up.”

“Tony’s taking us out to dinner,” Peter said brightly.

“Thai?” Happy asked.

“He’s nothing if not predictable,” Tony said, helping Peter in. “There’s going to be grooves carved into the road from the tower to the Thai restaurant.”

“To match the grooves from the tower to the Italian one you insist on going to every time it’s your choice,” Peter countered.

“Italian?” Bucky asked. “You been to Gargiulo’s?” 

“Fuck yes. I haven’t been in ages. But it’s as close as you get to Napoletano outside of Naples. Sorry kid, you’re overruled. Happy! Change of plan. Coney Island.”

“What‽” Peter screached. “I will be as old as you two before I eat.”

“Yeah, true. Nevermind the car. Make the arrangements, Hap. We’ll meet you on the helipad.”

“What the fuck?” Peter said.

“What the fuck?” Bucky said, just a little bit behind him.

“Oh, pretty and beautiful chime in,” Tony said, teasingly. “You think you’re going to dangle the possibility of me eating like my m… Oh.” Tony gasped and sat heavily down onto the backseat of the car. His eyes closed tightly shut and he began hyperventilating.

“Shit,” Bucky whispered. He backed away until he was up against the wall of the garage, as far away from Tony as he could get. He watched as Peter climbed next to Tony. Once the kid had Tony in his arms, Bucky ran up the garage ramp and kept running.

“Stop him,” Tony gasped out. “Lock the garage down before he gets out.” He flailed for Happy’s arm. “It’s not his fault,” he told Happy. Which was as far as Tony’s bravery would take him. He buried his face against Peter’s chest. “It’s not his fault,” he said quieter.

“I know, Tony. It’s okay. He’s… his twin brother.”

“Yeah.” Tony drew a shaky breath and another and another. Slow and deep. In the safety of Peter’s arms, it was easy to convince himself of that. Twin brother. That made sense. It was a gut level reaction to seeing the same face associated with… 

Tony was sitting on the edge of the carseat when Bucky came back down, followed by Happy. “I’m not going to kill you.”

“You couldn’t.”

“Debatable. But I don’t _want_ to kill you. Your dead twin brother on the other hand,” Tony said, trying at a wan smile.

“I’m sorry.” Bucky sat cross-legged on the garage floor in front of the car door’s opening. 

“I forgot who you aren’t. It’s… I got caught up in the moment. My… her cousin used to work at the place. She and I ate there a lot the summer between high school and MIT. Howard was setting things up in L.A. that summer. It…” Tony closed his eyes again. “I don’t want to blame you,” he said quietly. “I know it wasn’t you.”

“She was Italian? That wasn’t in the file. Nothing was. A time. A date. A location. A mission. I didn’t know who. Not until after. Until just before Pierce had me wiped again and sent me back to Siberia for storage.” Bucky tried to hide his reaction to his memory of the procedure.

“I’m sorry,” Tony said.

Peter reached out for each of their hands. “Takeout, obviously.” He helped both men to their feet and led them to the elevator. “Chinese or pizza?”

“Chinese,” they both said.

“Fantastic.” Peter leaned his head on Tony’s shoulder and wrapped their arms together. But he kept his hand reached out to hold Bucky’s.

~~~~~

They let Peter pick the movie. 

“I thought you didn’t like sci-fi?” Bucky asked.

“To be honest, the whole ‘sitting still pretending to be mentally engaged by a movie’ is new to me,” Tony offered in his defense.

“You told me you loved Star Wars.”

“Yeah. Star Wars.”

“And Star Trek.”

“That’s okay too.”

“That’s sci-fi!” Peter said emphatically.

“Technically, that’s space opera,” Tony countered. 

“You don’t _have_ to sit and watch movies with me,” Peter said, sounding actually hurt.

“I like sitting and watching movies with you. I never said I didn’t. I said it was new to me.”

“Watching movies can’t be new to you. He’s older than you and it’s not new to him,” Peter said, nodding towards Bucky.

“Baby, the last movie I sat and watched all the way through, in one sitting, _was_ Star Wars. The summer right before I was sent to boarding school in the fall.”

“Oh.”

“It’s okay. It’s just… new. Sitting still for this long. Not… _doing_ anything.”

“You’re watching a movie.”

“No, baby. You’re watching a movie. I’m watching you.” Tony leaned over and gave Peter a kiss. He was about to deepen it when he remembered they weren’t alone. He chuckled. “Sorry.” 

Peter laughed. “I forsee us bumbling around each other saying ‘sorry’ a lot.”

“You haven’t said ‘sorry’ yet, kid,” Bucky grinned.

“Call me kid again and I’ll web your cool metal arm to the floor again.” Peter grinned back. “Then I’ll say sorry for it after.”

~~~~~

“Bucky. Hey, Bucky. It’s all right. You’re safe. You’re in New York. You’re in Stark Tower. Bucky. It’s Peter. Parker. Peter Parker. You’re okay.”

Bucky punched in the direction of the voice. His punch was… caught. His arm made an electromechanical whirr. He opened his eyes.

“Hi Bucky,” Peter smiled at him, holding his metal fist in his hand. “You were having a nightmare. No, no. Don’t move yet.” Peter put Bucky’s hand down onto the bed. 

“Peter?” Bucky said hoarsely.

“Yeah,” he smiled again.

“You shouldn’t wake me up from a nightmare. I could hurt you.”

“Hi, I’m Spider-Man. You can’t hurt me. You already tried to hurt me and didn’t. But I didn’t wake you up. I know better.”

“You know better?” Bucky asked, stretching his legs out, one at a time, then his right arm, moving his fingers.

“Nightmares. Kinda the pass-code to the penthouse.”

“Tony?” Peter nodded. “You?” Bucky asked, less credulously. Peter nodded again.

“Welcome to the fabulous superhero life.”

“Some of mine were from before the superhero life,” Bucky said quietly.

“Some of Tony’s. Some of mine, too. It doesn’t matter who has them worse, when they’re happening, they’re all worse.”

“You can go back to bed now, kid. Thanks. But Tony’ll be missing you.”

Peter sucked in his lips, but stayed.

“He’s not in bed?”

“When he’s avoiding nightmares, he doesn’t sleep.”

“Wish I could learn that trick,” Bucky said bitterly. He saw Peter’s expression. “No, I guess I don’t.”

“It could be three days or more before he sleeps. However long it takes his body to pass out this time around. I’ll be there when he needs me.”

“Who’s there for you, kid?”

“Tony is. When I wake up crushed by tons of concrete or seeing my uncle get murdered or clinging onto the skin of an airplane as it falls from the sky or…”

“Price of admission to the Stark Tower penthouse suite,” Bucky said, “one lifetime of nightmares.”

“Basically,” Peter said, nodding. “You okay? Tony doesn’t like being alone after. You used to have Steve…”

Bucky sighed. “Not exactly. Our relationship was…”

“Complicated?”

He chuckled. “That’s one way to put it. The thing you and Tony have? We grew up in a different time.”

“I thought you two were together?”

“We were. But not like you and Tony. It was more… casual.”

Peter furrowed his brow. “You don’t sound casual.”

“It was all it could be. We were looking for different things. The thing I wanted… it wasn’t possible back then. Then other things became a habit… then it was hard to fall out of those habits…”

“Tony had those habits. He told me what it was like. I can’t imagine it. Not really. To know you want one thing, but lie and hide and pretend to want something else. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

“Fear’s where you begin, Peter,” Bucky said. He rolled onto his side and balled up the pillow under his head. “I’m glad you don’t know where to begin.”

“Tony learned to get over it.”

“He had you to make him want to get over it. A cute boyfriend’s a pretty strong motivator.”

Peter giggled and blushed. “You’re a cute boyfriend, why didn’t Steve get over it?”

“I wasn’t even sure what we were. What we could be. What I even wanted us to be anymore. I had him before the war, I lost him after I shipped out. Then I had him again for awhile during the war and lost him again. Then I had him after HYDRA. But this third time? I think ‘lost’ has finally won. Whatever we _might’ve_ had…” Bucky shook his head. “The Steve I knew, either before or during the war, wouldn’t have made the decision he has. Whoever he’s become, he isn’t my Steve anymore.” 

They fell into silence. “Go to bed, Peter. You have class and I have the first of my debriefs with Fury. Trade ya,” he said, smiling.

“Not for all the money in Tony Stark’s bank account.” Peter leaned over and gave Bucky a quick kiss on his temple. “Good night.”

~~~~~

“He had a nightmare,” Peter said, sleepily settling on a stool next to Tony’s workstation.

“Hmm.”

“He and Rogers weren’t… together together.”

“That’s good.”

“The Chitauri are attacking again.”

“Uh huh.”

“TONY!”

“What?” Tony spun on his chair to face Peter. 

“Good night, FRIDAY.”

“Good night, Peter. Good night, boss.” FRIDAY powered down the holotables and the screens.

“I thought I told you not to fuck with FRIDAY’s protocols anymore.”

Peter laughed and took Tony’s hands. “Build tighter access to prevent a hardware intercept.”

“No one else but you has access to FRIDAY’s hardware.”

“Then don’t complain about me adding a ‘good night’ protocol to her.” He pulled on Tony’s hands until he was standing and following him.

“I don’t have to follow you upstairs, you know.”

“Yeah you kinda do if you want to keep your hands attached to the rest of you.”

“God, I hate you, Peter Parker.”

“Ya love me and ya know it.”

“He had a nightmare?” Tony asked, having heard the whole thing.

“Uh huh. A bad one. Don’t worry. I was there when he woke up.”

“I do love you, you know.” Tony let Peter finish leading him to their bedroom door. “I’m glad you were able to help him,” he said. “I know it’s not his fault. It doesn’t… make it hurt any less.” he added, quieter.

“It hurts him too.”

“I know. That’s why I’m glad you helped him.” Tony kissed Peter lightly before closing the door behind them and letting him finish taking him to bed.


	3. Colonel Flappy-coat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Russian naming convention. Natalia Romanova. Natasha Romanoff. Or Ms. Widow, to you kid.” Bucky grinned. “She’ll die when I tell her that.”

“You shouldn’t let me make you miss so much class,” Tony said, rolling over and nuzzling the spot behind Peter’s ear.

“You’re lucky I don’t take advantage of the fact that while we’re still not _completely_ out about our relationship, every one of my professors knows that I’m Iron Man’s boyfriend. Because Tony fucking Stark told them as he signed the checks to fund their departments.”

Tony laughed. “What’s the point of being a billionaire if you can’t embarrass your boyfriend with it? As soon as you’re legal…”

“I’m legal now, Tony.”

“…in all fifty states, I will be more than happy to sing it from the roof of my tower that you are my beautiful boyfriend who puts up with far more from me than he should ever have to.”

“Do you think Bucky’s okay up at HQ?” Peter asked.

Tony brought out his phone and checked. “Company helicopter picked him up here, he flew himself there, he’s been in with Fury for almost three hours. So, no, he’s not okay. He’s been in a room with Nick Fury for three hours.”

“We should pick him up.”

“The helicopter’s there with him. We could take mine, though. Leave the other to self-pilot home.”

“I thought yours was the only one that could…” Peter rolled his eyes when he saw the way Tony was looking at him. “Can you not tinker with anything that comes within a thousand yards of you?” he asked rhetorically, giggling.

“Nope. Impossible. Didn’t you hear the story about how I upgraded a reporter’s phone just by glaring at it one day?”

“That was awesome. There’s evidence!”

“Of course there is. Who do you think ’shopped the evidence?”

“FRIDAY,” Peter said confidently. “You are the laziest computer genius in the world.”

“FRIDAY does things she can do; I do things she _can’t._ A more effective use of my time. Which leaves me more time to do this…”

“Not if we’re going to pick Bucky up from HQ,” Peter said, putting his hand up between them.

“Why am I doing that instead of fucking my beautiful boyfriend?”

“Because we’re rescuing him from Nick Fury.”

Tony sighed. “You had to go invoke that name and kill the mood. All right.” 

~~~~~

“Do I have your attention, Sergeant Barnes?” Nick Fury asked, noticing Bucky staring out the window.

“No.”

“No?”

“No. The helicopter I flew here in just lifted off. Without a pilot.”

“You get used to that sort of thing when Stark’s around.”

“He’s not around though.”

“If his helicopter just took off, he will be. Now, about Korea… Would you _mind_ not gawping at every technological wonder Stark pulls out of his ass? His ego doesn’t need the polish,” Fury said.

Bucky gawped at the larger helicopter landing, also pilotless. That time he saw Peter and Tony get out of the passenger area though. He smiled.

“I can see that we’re done for the day.”

“Sorry sir.”

“Go on,” Fury said disgusted at Bucky’s distraction. 

“They think they’re fooling people,” he muttered under his breath as he stood, watching Tony and Peter head toward the main door.

“No,” Bucky said, smiling. “They just don’t give a fuck.”

~~~~~

“I’ll be back in a minute, baby,” Tony said, putting a kiss on Peter’s head when they met Bucky in the entrance.

“You look like you needed rescuing,” Peter said smiling. He took Bucky’s hand and held it briefly. “How are you holding up?”

“It’s fine. What I expected. More pleasant, actually.”

“With Nick Fury?” Peter said disbelieving.

“He’s professional. Calm. There’s an obvious agenda, but it’s obvious. He has a less obvious agenda naturally, but it’s obvious as well. I see why Tony insisted he handle my debrief.”

“Tony says Fury scares the shit out of him.”

Bucky chuckled. “You believe him?”

“Of course not,” Peter said. “But I let him think I do.” He paused. “I know the things that scare him.”

“I’m one of those things,” Bucky said.

Peter nodded. “He doesn’t want you to be though. I believe him on that.”

“Everyone here knows you’re together,” Bucky said, changing the subject.

“We’re not exactly subtle,” Peter giggled.

“I thought you were trying to keep your relationship quiet.”

“From the press. I’m still not legal age in a lot of states. If it got out of the small circle of people — Avengers, Tony’s personal staff, our friends and family — it… wouldn’t be great,” Peter said understating it. “When I turn eighteen, we’ll come completely out then. People will still talk and _everyone_ will know that we started before. But there’ll be nothing that can be done about it.” He looked at Bucky sideways. “It doesn’t bother you? It bothers everyone. Even people who are our friends.”

“Peter, with my past… Is he hurting you? No. All right. Then he’s already a million miles above things that I have done to people younger than you.”

“Not you.”

Bucky sighed. “Maybe not, but my body did them.”

“Do you want to talk to someone about it?” Peter asked gently.

“Like a head shrinker?” Bucky scoffed. “What shrink is going to understand _me?”_

“Yeah. I get it. Hi. I can lift seventy tons and not break a sweat. I can literally feel my broken bones knitting back together. And I have trouble sleeping.”

Bucky laughed. “We’re not exactly couch material, any of us in this building, I don’t think.”

“This is true. There are some in the medical department here that try, but… even if they’re in on the whole secret identity thing, they just don’t _know._ And that’s just dealing with the superhero part. Not the whole… I was a secret assassin whose brain got regularly put into a blender for seventy years. Oh! I probably shouldn’t have said that.”

“No,” Bucky said, trying to keep from laughing so hard. “You should’ve. You definitely should’ve. You have no idea what it’s like when everyone around you is tiptoeing around…” He caught Peter grinning. “Of course you know. All three of us know.” 

He paused for a long time. “You know, Tony’s right. You do got some wisdom about you, kid.”

“What this time?” Peter said smiling softly. It was something he and Tony knew, but no one else understood. Age didn’t have anything to do with it. They _understood_ each other. There were things Tony understood and Peter didn’t. There were things Peter understood and Tony didn’t. And there were things they both understood. Age was experiences and maturity. Age had nothing to do with _understanding._

“What you told me last night. Comparing… pain. The number of pains doesn’t matter really. Because when you’re in the middle of one… it’s just as bad as the other guy’s is. No matter what the count. Counting just makes you hate yourself. Either you don’t think you have the right to feel that way because others have it worse…” Peter sighed and nodded. “…Or the weight of it is…” Bucky closed his eyes. When he opened them, he looked at the ceiling before looking at Peter again. “…It’s incomprehensible. When you start comparing, the spiral of hating yourself never ends.”

Peter reached across on the bench they were sharing and touched his fingertips to Bucky’s metal ones. Bucky started to pull away. Peter put his whole hand over the back of Bucky’s.

“People don’t touch me there,” he said quietly.

“Why?”

“It frightens them.”

“Huh. Really?”

“I suppose.”

“Can you feel it?”

Bucky tilted his head to the side and looked at Peter.

“Can you?” Peter asked again.

“No one’s ever asked. Not even Steve.”

“Really?” Peter’s eyes went wide. “Well, can you?”

Bucky nodded. “It’s not the same though.”

“I wouldn’t think so. The neural net would have to be totally different. Even this one that you got in Wakanda, it can’t interface with what isn’t there. It has to interface through the nerves of your shoulder… It does interface there, right?” Peter asked.

Bucky nodded. “Through my shoulder.”

“Tony’s latest suit that he's working on will interface directly to his mind. He'll think ‘do something’ and it will. Nerves don’t have to be there.”

Bucky paused. “How do you know how my arm works?”

“Data mining. Tony backdoored into Fury’s system, like, ages ago. JARVIS ran the program.”

“JARVIS is Vision now.”

“Uh… yeah mostly. Anyway, Tony got everything. What he didn’t was in the files Ms. Widow released…” 

Bucky laughed quietly. “Ms. Widow? Does Romanova know you call her that?”

“No. I haven’t seen her since Berlin. It just didn’t seem right for me to call her…” Peter smiled. “She’s amazing and so… Wait. Roman _ova?_ I thought it was Romanoff.”

“Russian naming convention. Natalia Romanova. Natasha Romanoff. Or Ms. Widow, to you kid.” Bucky grinned. “She’ll die when I tell her that.”

“You know her? I mean… Yeah, of course… It just sounded…”

“I was her weapons trainer in Russia,” Bucky explained. “We went on missions together. Another me, another her.”

“Anyway,” Peter changed the subject, “whatever Fury knows, Tony knows, which means FRIDAY knows, which means Tony _thinks_ I don’t know, except I think he really _does_ know that I know…”

“Planning on coming round to your point anytime soon, Pete?”

“Fuck. How long has he been there?” Peter asked Bucky.

“Long enough to know that FRIDAY and I need to have a talk about you,” Tony said.

“Yeah, but what are you going to do about JARVIS’ air-gapped source matrix who tells me how to break into FRIDAY?”

“Will you shut the hell up, kid?” Tony said in a warning whisper. “Did you not just see Mr. Flappy-coat walk by here a few moments ago?”

“Wouldn’t that be Colonel Flappy-coat?” Bucky asked.

“Hush. Say his name three times and he appears,” Peter warned.

“That would be Beetlejuice, Parker,” Fury said. “Barnes? Ten a.m. tomorrow morning. I have business elsewhere, Hill will handle your next debrief.”

“Yes sir,” Bucky said, standing.

“Jesus fucking Christ, pretty, if you salute him…”

Fury raised his eyebrow at Tony’s nickname for Barnes.

“You don’t salute a retired officer in civilian clothes, Tony.”

“But standing’s a nice touch,” Fury said as he and his flappy-coat left the building.

~~~~~

Bucky started to climb into the cockpit of the helicopter.

“Flies itself,” Tony said. “Unless you’re particularly in the mood,” he added with a shrug.

“Habit,” Bucky said sheepishly and climbed into the passenger compartment with Tony and Peter. 

They sat in awkward silence until Bucky finally broke it. “Will you be reviewing everything I say to Fury?”

“Directly? No. FRIDAY will be. I don’t really care if you killed JFK or if that’s a rumor.”

“Not a rumor,” Bucky said, staring out the window.

“So?” Tony said dismissively. “There are things she knows I’m interested in. Anything to do with Stark. Anything to do with the Avengers or enhanced individuals. A bit of financial data here and there.” Peter looked at him sideways. Tony shrugged. “All that,” he said, nodding towards the Avengers compound shrinking in the distance, “doesn’t pay for itself. It’s only insider trading if you get caught. I don’t.” 

“About Steve?”

“I could lie, but I don’t. Yes, about Rogers. Past and present. Do I care about his current location? I care more about what happened on the Grassy Knoll. But I will not be blindsided by him again. I stopped giving a damn about him when he left me for dead in Siberia.”

 _“We_ left you. You were alive.”

“Only one of you was walking under his own steam. You went where he brought you. Away from me, which was sensible at the time. But this?” Tony tapped his arc reactor. “Not a fuckin’ night light. The shield cracked through the suit’s RT, through the sapphire-glass, and left the coils damaged. FRIDAY was busy trying to decide which was more important, keeping my heart functioning or keeping me from dying of hypothermia.” Tony’s anger and voice rose as he spoke.

“I didn’t know,” Peter gasped. “You were fine when you brought me home from Berlin.”

“I called a new suit with a replacement arc reactor. Which drained the shattered one in me more. But even at Mach 7, it takes over an hour to get from New York to Siberia. Long time to be lying there at sub-zero while your heart is deciding whether or not it wants to keep going for a little while longer. Not that Rogers gave a damn.”

“I didn’t know,” Bucky said, repeating Peter. “Steve said you had it removed.”

“I did. Steve also knew that I had to have it put back when smaller pieces of shrapnel started moving, broken off when Doctor Wu removed the larger ones. He was very aware of what an attack here,” Tony touched the arc again, “would do.”

“I was trying to power down your suit,” Bucky said quietly. “Not kill you.”

“From my perspective, it looked like you were. Rogers could’ve told you. He could’ve told us both a lot of things. He didn’t. So yeah… I’m going to be picking your debrief over for things about him.” Tony took several steadying breaths and tried to hide the fact that his hand dropped to the seat, seeking Peter’s. Which it found. 

“I’m not going after him, Bucky. He can stay gone. If he walks through those doors?” He nodded again in the direction of the compound, which had faded from sight. “I’m not sure I can operate under his command. That’s disingenuous. I’m sure I _can’t_ operate under his command. I’ll go back to being a consultant to the Avengers and to being Iron Man. Two very separate things.

“Things are complicated. I don’t want them to be, but they are. I have issues over who you are and… who you’re not. You’ve got issues over me and Rogers about this. It’s not going to resolve in a day or two. I know that. But the fact that you’re sitting here, of all places?” Tony nodded. “It’s a hell of a lot more responsibility for… _things…_ than he’s taken. I can respect that.”

“That you opened the elevator door given everything… I can respect that as well.”

“That’s something to start from,” Tony said.

“And it always ends with what are you going to feed me?” Peter said. “Spider metabolism, remember? We slept in. No breakfast. We flew upstate. No lunch. Are you trying to starve me?”

“I’ll cook. You have an entire grocery store in your cupboards, Tony,” Bucky said, shaking his head in disbelief.

“The Depression was almost a century ago.” Tony rolled his eyes.

“For some people in this helicopter it was about fifteen years ago. I’ll cook.”

“Billionaire, remember? I’ll order in.”

“What do you do with the food in your house?”

“He mostly burns it,” Peter cheerfully offered.


	4. Like a fuckin’ sleeping kitten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m gonna go start dinner because otherwise you two will never eat. How did you survive before I took up residence in Tony’s kitchen?”

Bucky knocked quietly on the master bedroom door. There wasn’t an answer, but that was clearly Peter’s voice crying out for help. And the kid wasn’t stopping. Hesitantly, he turned the doorknob. “Peter?”

“Help! Somebody help him!”

Peter was alone in bed, on his stomach, arms splayed out, fists grabbing the sheets, his body twisting. Bucky sat on the edge of the bed.

“Peter.” He’d never had to deal with anyone else’s nightmares before. “Peter, it’s Bucky.” He tried to remember the things the kid had said to him. “You’re safe. You’re in Stark Tower. You’re in Tony’s bed. You’re safe Peter.” He didn’t know much about someone else’s nightmares, but he knew enough about his own. Don’t touch him. Don’t stop him from flailing. Don’t try to shake him awake. Don’t turn on the bright lights. “Hey, Peter. It’s Bucky. You’re having a nightmare. It’s not real. You’re in your home.”

Peter’s vision was blurred with tears as he blinked his eyes open. “Tony?” he said in a small pained whine. He reached his hand out. 

“It’s Bucky. You were having a nightmare. I don’t know where Tony is.”

“Oh.” Peter lay still, breathing shallowly but too fast.

Bucky reached over and touched Peter’s outstretched hand. “I’m here, Peter. It’s Bucky.”

“Oh.” His brow furrowed.

“You’re not awake yet, are you?”

“Tony?” Peter’s voice started to rise toward panic again.

“No. Bucky.” He looked down at his hand holding Peter’s. He changed hands. “Peter…” He spread Peter’s palm over the back of his metal hand. “It’s Bucky. You’re having a nightmare. I’m here. You’re safe.”

Peter’s fingers curled around Bucky’s hand. He smiled sleepily and blinked a few times. “Hey Bucky.”

“Hey Peter. Are you awake?”

“Uh huh.”

Bucky ducked his head to look into Peter’s face.

“Hi. I’m awake,” Peter said back. He rolled onto his side and curled up, still not letting go of Bucky’s hand.

“Where’s Tony?”

“Iron Man business. He had to leave right after we went to bed. FRIDAY, where’s Tony?”

“He’s in New Zealand, Peter. Should I tell him you need him?”

“No. I’m okay. Is that family okay?”

“Yes. The boss has the part of the building they’re in stabilized. He and Colonel Rhodes are searching for other survivors.”

“Don’t interrupt him, Fri. It was just a nightmare. Bucky’s here. I’m okay.” He bit his lip. “Good night FRIDAY,” he said reluctantly. He looked at Bucky. “He can’t be distracted right now and she’ll tell him.”

“Are you okay?”

Peter curled in tighter around the duvet. He shook his head.

“Wanna talk about it?”

He shook his head again.

“Wanna call Tony?”

Peter’s voice was small. “Can you… can you stay?”

“Sure, kid.”

Peter looked up at him. “You don’t mind?”

“Will Tony mind?”

“That you stayed to help me get over a nightmare? No.” He bit his lip again. “Can you… get in bed?”

Bucky climbed into the ridiculously huge bed and sat up, leaning against the headboard. Peter’s hand immediately took his metal one and held it.

“Do you mind? I know it’s you then.” 

“It’s okay, Peter.” Bucky liked it that Peter and Tony both touched him on his left arm no differently than his right. 

Peter balled himself up in the duvet. He put his head in Bucky’s lap, looking away from him. He picked up Bucky’s other hand and put it on his head. His sigh shuddered. And his breath hitched as he started to quietly cry.

Bucky wasn’t sure that Tony would see this as such an innocent sight if he were to walk in the door right then, but Peter was obviously a very tactile person when he was upset. He slowly started to thread his fingers through Peter’s hair. The boy’s tears stopped after a bit and his breaths evened out. Bucky could tell he’d fallen asleep.

He hadn’t realized he fell asleep as well until he felt a light touch on his shoulder.

“Shh. I don’t want to wake him up,” Tony whispered. “Didn’t want to wake you up either, but didn’t want you to kill me if you felt me climbing into bed,” Tony said smiling as he did so. “Nightmare?”

“Yes.”

Tony curled up against Peter’s back.

“I’ll go,” Bucky whispered.

“You’ll wake him up and Fri says he only fell _sound_ asleep two hours ago.”

“New Zealand okay?” Bucky asked.

“Still to the right of Australia where I left it. You can go if you want. If he wakes up I’ll be here. Trying to sleep like that’s gotta be uncomfortable.”

“I’ve slept in worse positions. I don’t want to wake Peter up.”

“Can’t move because of him. Like a fuckin’ sleeping kitten.”

“Like a fuckin’ awake kitten,” Peter muttered, still half asleep. He reached back and pulled Tony’s arm around his waist. He still didn’t let go of Bucky’s metal hand. “’M tired. Shut up.”

~~~~~

FRIDAY woke them up to announce an urgent call from Maria Hill. None of them were still sleepers. Bucky had slid down fully onto the bed. Tony was sprawled half across Peter’s body. His arm had reached from around his waist to entirely cross the boy and was resting on Bucky’s knee. Peter still had a death-grip on Bucky’s hand, but had pulled it across the man’s body, twisting him, yet still managing to sneak himself in under his entire metal arm and was drooling onto Bucky’s t-shirt. His leg was bent back at an odd, starfish angle, caught underneath Tony’s.

“Fri? Did a wormhole open up above us?” Tony muttered.

“No boss.”

“Why the fuck are you waking me up?”

“Maria Hill is calling for Sergeant Barnes.”

“Bucky,” Tony corrected her, still asleep.

“Maria Hill is calling for Bucky. He’s an hour late for their debrief.”

“Fuck!” Bucky said, trying to disentangle himself. “Peter, let go. I’m late.”

“Be late,” Peter mumbled, in perfect imitation of Tony’s expression.

“I can’t. Let go, kid.”

“Ugh,” Peter reluctantly let go of Bucky’s hand and rolled over, pushing Tony onto his side and nestling himself against the man’s chest. He nuzzled against the arc reactor, and gave a sleepy chuckle. “I think I need tech to fall asleep.”

“Shut up and go back asleep, Pete. I had half a building dropped on me last night. I’m not getting up for anything less than a wormhole.”

“I’m going to need a lift to the compound.” Bucky tossed the duvet he’d knocked off the bed back onto it and over the sleeping couple.

“Fri?”

“On it boss. The helicopter will be waiting for you by the time you’ve finished getting ready, Bucky.”

“Thank you FRIDAY,” Bucky said as he headed for the bedroom door.

“Shut up, Bucky.”

“Shut up, Bucky.”

~~~~~

“FUCK!”

No one was in the penthouse when the helicopter dropped Bucky off from yet a different day of debrief. The sound came from below.

“GODDAMMIT DUM-E! Are you trying to… Go. You’re useless. Wait. Bring me the… no not that one the other… Yes. Thank you. You get to live one more day.”

“Tony?” Bucky called out.

“Oh hell! How hard can getting this damn thing to work be! You are annoying the hell out of me, machine. Goddammit I have a PhD in physics, one in engineering, and one in robotics. How the hell can I not manage to adjust one… OUCH! FUCK!”

Bucky followed the expletives to their source, down a long flight of spiral stairs into a workshop. He still didn’t see Tony, but he saw an entire array of his armor stretched along one wall. And he saw Peter, hunched over a table with things hovering above it that looked like the battle game Luke Skywalker was playing with Chewbacca.

“Peter?”

There wasn’t an answer. Peter’s hands kept moving through the light, making things grow and spin and change. He was mumbling to himself. Bucky walked over to the table and stood opposite. 

“Peter?”

“Fuck!” Peter said, jumping in his chair, sending the strands of light that were following his fingers off into nothingness. “FRIDAY, take it back to just before I added the catalyst.” He took the earpieces out and smiled. “Bucky. You’re home early.”

Loud clanging sounds and more cursing came from a level below where they were.

“Tony, you are not doing percussive maintenance on a transmission electron microscope, are you?” Peter shouted.

“Of course not, babe. I would NEVER do something like that.”

“You could just call Lawrence Berkeley to finish the…”

“They brought the damn thing here and set it up. I can _complete_ the adjustments of a goddamn electron microscope on my own!”

Peter sighed and rolled his eyes. “There are only FIVE others in the world and you are going to destroy the sixth!”

Bucky chuckled. “I’m gonna go start dinner because otherwise you two will never eat. How did you survive before I took up residence in Tony’s kitchen?”

“Menus,” Tony’s voice came from downstairs. “A whole drawer of them next to the fridge. This is New York. You want something, _anything,_ ask FRIDAY. It appears.” Tony’s head appeared from the hole in the floor where the spiral staircase was. “Even a transmission electron microscope. Which is now adjusted, fully functional, and ready for me to work on the nanites.” The rest of Tony appeared.

Peter didn’t even try to hide the fact that he was drooling. Bucky at least hid it. He was a houseguest. It was inappropriate to drool over his host. Even if his host was wearing a tight-fitting black tank top, torn jeans, covered in sweat and dirt, and looking like sex on two legs.

Tony gave Peter a smirk. Peter smiled, got up from his workstation, and met Tony at the spiral stairs. He took Tony’s hand and led him up the next flight to the penthouse… and the bedroom… level.

“Sorry, pretty,” Tony said, not sounding sorry at all. “You’re on your own for dinner.”


	5. On accounta the stew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Steve Rogers is the one and only voice of authority for the entire world!” Bucky ducked his head. “I may have asked him when he was going to be fitted for his armband.”

“Oh god that smells good,” Peter said, padding barefoot from the bedroom around ten into the kitchen, wearing a baggy pair of sweats and an even baggier, threadbare MIT t-shirt. “But y’know you don’t have to keep cooking for us.”

“I have to eat,” Bucky said with a shrug.

Tony followed next out of the bedroom, slightly less dressed, wearing only a pair of boxers, but apparently a shower had been taken because he was wearing considerably less dirt. “You don’t have to earn your keep here, Bucky.” Tony opened the drawer next to the fridge. “If I don’t have a menu for a place in here, it’s because their food sucks. FRIDAY, give Bucky level 1A access to you and 2 access to everything else.”

“Yes boss.”

“There ya go. Order what you want whenever you want it. Though not if you want to spend seven billion on a microscope.”

“And put a huge dent in the thing,” Peter chided.

Tony rolled his eyes. “It’s the casing. It doesn’t affect how it works, just how it looks. If it offends you so much, I’ll fabricate a new one out of gold-titanium alloy that’s harder to dent.”

“Oh god you’re gonna do that anyway just to make it red and gold.”

“You know me so well babe,” Tony said, grinning. He went over and looked into the huge pot simmering on low on the stove. “What is that?”

“Our late dinner.” Peter stuck a long spoon into the pot. “Stew. And it’s delicious.” He got a bowl and filled it.

“It’s all right,” Bucky said. “I ate about… oh… four hours ago. Y’know, Tony, soundproofing might be an investment worth considering,” he added, laughing.

Peter turned bright red. “Oh god.” He sat the bowl of stew down at the end of the table for Tony and filled another for himself.

“This is actually… good,” Tony said. “Tastes like the Irish stew Jarvis used to make.”

“Vision cooks?”

“Not JARVIS, Jarvis. Our butler.”

“You had a…”

“Of course he did,” Peter said with a sigh. “You get used to him dropping things like that as if everyone in the world grew up in a huge mansion with a butler and a staff. Do not _ever_ expect him to change the sheets.”

“That’s what the staff is for.” 

Bucky sat at the table across from Peter, next to Tony. “Steve would say it’s not proper Irish stew because you didn’t have any stout. Like Sarah ever kept liquor in her house…” He stopped suddenly, caught by the memory. “Sorry.” He hesitated. He wanted to talk about it but wasn’t sure of the reception. He decided to chance it. 

“Even after your dad’s experiment changed him, he was still Steve. He was different, but underneath the whole Captain America thing, he was still the kid I grew up with in Brooklyn. He was a soldier, like the rest of us. A little headstrong, rubbed up against orders sometimes, but he took them.”

“I’m sorry,” Peter said, he reached his hand across the table and touched Bucky’s.

“Which is why I couldn’t understand…” Tony shook his head. “A hundred and seventeen countries, including this one… _and_ half of his team… thought accountability was a reasonable request that the world was making of us.”

“It is,” Bucky said. “I spent the last year, since I left Wakanda, listening to Steve. The way he described it, in the context of what happened to SHIELD, not trusting another World Security Council sounded reasonable.”

“Why’d you change your mind?” Tony asked.

“I read them. He had his copy still. I couldn’t sleep. I’d read just about everything else where we were staying. So I actually read the Accords for myself.”

“They’ve been amended since then.”

“I saw that when I signed. I made them wait until I read the addendum pages.”

Tony laughed. “I bet they loved that.”

“After I signed, that’s when I got into it with him. He’s mad I signed. I still don’t understand why he didn’t. You guys, the Avengers, he said you were soldiers.”

Tony scoffed. “I’m not a soldier.”

“Well, you take orders better than one former U.S. Army Captain.” Bucky huffed in anger. “Without an effective chain of command, without oversight, there’s nothing to stop an army from turning on the people and putting someone like Hitler in charge. We both saw that happen. But no. Steve Rogers is the one and only voice of authority for the entire world!” Bucky ducked his head. “I may have asked him when he was going to be fitted for his armband.”

Tony sputtered around a forkful of stew. “I’d’a paid money to see his face. 

“But you get it,” Tony continued. “When I found out what Stark was doing — what it was allowed to do — not only by my negligence, but because the DoD writes checks and never pays attention to what’s done with the money — I got out of the business. I couldn’t be a part of that. Is it still a problem with other companies, sure. I can’t right every wrong in the world. But I don’t have to be complicit with it. Rogers, he’s like — anyone who’s an Avenger can do whatever they want, whenever they want, anywhere in the world they want to do it. Which, okay, maybe. There’s less than two dozen of us and we were a team. That’s less of a problem. But there are many more Enhanced who the Avengers Initiative has no authority over.”

“The Accords still don’t,” Peter said. “I haven’t signed.”

“No. Neither has Murdock, Cage, Jones, Skye, Elena, and a whole lot more. A lot have signed, though. _But_ since I’ve been unofficially running things, we monitor those who haven’t. What’s left of SHIELD handles the situation if an Enhanced becomes a threat. You’re not a threat, baby. And if you ever do decide to step out of the ‘friendly neighborhood’, you’re going to have to sign.”

“I will. I’m just not ready yet.”

“And I’m not ready to put you at that level of risk yet either. It’s above your paygrade. Keeping the world safe is my job. Keeping the streets safe is yours.”

“Fury said that for him to be able to debrief me, I had to become part of the Avengers Initiative.”

“So you’re on world-saving duty along with Tony.”

“Peter, that is the highest end dishwasher they make in the world. You don’t even have to rinse the bowl. Just put it in the machine. God,” Tony said exasperatedly as he watched Peter start to lower his bowl into the sink.

“And all you have to do is stretch the elastic corners over the ends of the mattress,” Peter said, noisily clattering both bowl and silverware in the sink.

Bucky laughed.

“Sorry. Old fights,” Tony said.

“We’ve only been together nine months, how can they be old fights?”

“They were old fights two weeks after you moved in and started leaving dishes in the sink and failing to notice that there’s a laundry hamper in the dressing room.”

“Elastic corners, Tony. You don’t even have to tuck them in the way I bet Bucky used to have to do.”

“Oh no. I am not getting in the middle of this. He’s the one who lets me live here, you’re the one who keeps me from destroying the room when I have a nightmare. Nope.” Bucky headed for the sofa. “I’m also not doing the dishes. I cooked.”

“You don’t cook so you can _eat,”_ Tony said in a revelatory tone. “You cook so you don’t have to clean up after!”

“They did tell me you were a genius,” Bucky said, scrolling through Netflix. “After I learned how to cook, my sister got stuck with the dishes because she cooked like Peter says you do.”

“Staff, you guys. We. Had. Staff.” Tony got up shaking his head and emptied the sink of its dishes. He picked up the pot and poured its contents into the side of the sink with the disposal.

“What did you just do‽” Bucky said, leaping up from the sofa.

“You cooked too much. It's no big deal.” Tony started the disposal.

Bucky sputtered. “That was for the next three, maybe four days.”

“Uh, no.”

“Leftovers. Don’t you know the concept?”

“Didn’t most of your generation die of food poisoning?” Tony rinsed the pot and stuck it in the dishwasher with the bowls.

“Because we tried to keep food cold with ICE! Not a fridge that’s more technologically advanced than my arm! Stew is always better on the second day.”

“So’s salmonella.”

Peter came up and put his hand on Bucky’s arm. “It’s useless. I tried to keep leftover Chinese once. Got the same lecture. You learn to live with it.”

“It’s wasteful,” Bucky said, shaking his head. “There are people who…”

“Are eating tonight at one of seven homeless shelters the Stark Foundation funds every year. I am not getting food poisoning over either of yours guilt.”

“Used to be six. But then he threw out my leftover Chinese that I was saving.”

“Make it eight on accounta the stew.”

“If it’ll save my stomach, I’ll make it a round ten. No leftovers.” Tony grabbed Peter’s hand. “Thanks for dinner, pretty. It was good.”

“Woulda been better tomorrow,” Bucky muttered as he headed for the sofa and Tony and Peter headed for their bedroom.

Peter ducked his head back around the corner of the hall. “There’s wireless headphones in the drawer under the TV. Not as good as soundproofing but,” he added with a shrug before disappearing.

~~~~~

“I was worried,” Natasha said, answering Bucky’s call.

“It's not bad. It's good actually,” Bucky said. “Tony and Peter — the spider kid — are together.”

“Together?” Natasha asked

“Yes.”

 _“Together_ together?” she asked again, her voice rising in inflection.

“A couple. Yes.”

“He's a child.”

“He's seventeen. Which is, as he likes to remind everyone, the age of consent in New York state. He’s happy. Both of them are. Deliriously. Noisily. Often. He calls you Ms. Widow.”

“No. Really?” she tried hard not to laugh.

“Yes. It's adorable.” Bucky didn’t bother to try. “You should come back,” he said after a pause.

“I'm a criminal.”

“So was I. Tony can take care of that.”

“Tony's the one who _made_ me a criminal,” Nat said pointedly.

“It's more complicated than that and you know it.”

“I'm not agreeing to house arrest.”

“Lang isn't an Avenger. You are. I am.”

“You are?”

“Part of the arrangement Tony made,” Bucky explained. “Instead of another session with Everett Ross, Fury’s handling my debrief. For that, I had to agree to the Avenger Initiative.”

“Did you want to?”

“There are worse things.” Over the phone, Natasha couldn’t see his shrug. “It’s a chance at a little redemption.”

“I thought SHIELD was mine.”

“From what Tony tells me, SHIELD isn’t what it used to be. HYDRA’s been purged.”

“You believe that?”

“No. But I can help them make sure it is.”

“We’ve been away almost two years.”

“I thought it fell apart because of me. It was the Accords. Tony’s right on this one. It’s been such a waste of time. Running. For what? Steve’s ego?”

“I told the same thing to Tony. It was his ego.”

“I’ve yet to see it show up, Natasha. No worse than anyone else’s. Steve’s wrong.”

“What about Wanda? There was the issue of her not being a citizen.”

“When did you become a citizen? It’s not an issue. Not if she signs.”

There was a long pause. “He’ll be on his own.”

“He’ll come to his senses then,” Bucky said with more heat than he’d intended. “He won’t as long as he has someone to follow the righteous Captain America into battle. The issue if he comes back isn’t the Accords. It’s the damage he did after. Tony says he’ll leave when he returns.”

“And you say you haven’t seen his ego?”

“I’ve seen the pain that Steve’s lies about me caused. The Accords? Steve signs and that’s over for Tony. What happened in Siberia? That’s a broken trust. Harder to set aside.”

“He set it aside for you, apparently.”

“I had no choice in what I did. Steve had a choice.” He paused. “I doubt Tony will walk away, no matter what he says. He won’t trust Steve. But there are very few people who Tony trusts. He works with the others anyway. He’ll reach a peace with Steve, if Steve will let him.”

“We’ll talk about it,” Nat said.

“Talk to the others before Steve. If he knows, he’ll start one of his ‘rally the troops’ speeches and everyone will follow him into hell. On their own, the only hold out will be Sam. He’s starstruck.” Bucky paused. “I’ve seen it before,” he said sadly.


	6. A little head amongst friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sitting around watching movies caused habits to set in. Peter had two spots. On the other end of the sofa or curled up right next to Tony’s side. Bucky’s feet were in Peter’s first spot. Bucky himself was in Peter’s second. And his head was in Tony’s.

Peter’s damn habit of sitting on a sofa, doing nothing but staring at a screen, had become Tony’s method of taking a brain break from the workshop.

Bucky was stretched out on the sofa, rolled on his side facing the back, sleeping with his head where Tony’s spot to sit was. There were chairs. But the viewing angle wasn’t optimized for them. Sitting around watching movies caused habits to set in. Peter had two spots. On the other end of the sofa or curled up right next to Tony’s side. Bucky’s feet were in Peter’s first spot. Bucky himself was in Peter’s second. And his head was in Tony’s.

Tony lightly touched Bucky’s shoulder, not sure if he could feel the touch on the metal. He did and shifted slightly. Tony reached under Bucky’s head and slipped himself onto the seat, settling Bucky down onto his lap. He started the next thing on his playlist and turned the volume low.

It was a mildly interesting, if obvious, mystery. The actors were good, the writing well crafted, and it held Tony’s attention better than most things. He didn’t realize it when his fingers started carding through Bucky’s hair, sliding through the soft strands, slowly twisting and releasing them, massaging his scalp. Peter sometimes napped like this. It was a body response to the pressure of a head in his lap and soft hair lying there available for his hand to play with.

Bucky woke and shifted slightly in Tony’s lap, seeking out more of his soothing hair-playing. He sighed and moaned softly.

“Feel good, pretty?” Tony asked, still absorbed in watching the villain skillfully evade discovery, the actor striking the perfect balance of emotion needed for the deception.

“Mmm,” Bucky moaned his assent. “Always liked having my hair played with.”

Tony chuckled softly. “Always hated having my hair played with.”

They stayed like that through the second act. There was a certain response to having a warm body against him, a head curled up on his lap, soft hair teasing at his fingers. It was a slow response that crept up on Tony. Even as his jeans became tight, it was hardly noticed.

It was noticed by the person in his lap. Bucky nuzzled his face against the tight denim. Tony ignored the touch but his fingers’ massaging his scalp became firmer. A long, groaning moan came from Bucky as he nuzzled with more deliberateness. His mouth opened and his lips dragged across Tony’s tightly contained erection. Tony wasn’t paying attention, but neither was he stopping him.

On seeing it, people always expected his metal hand to be clumsy and robotic. His fingers were very carefully jointed and moved with as much skill, if not more, than the ones he had that were made of flesh. They were certainly deft enough to gently unbutton the top of Tony’s jeans, to find the zipper tab and lower it all the way down. Then spread the fly open to show that Tony wasn’t wearing anything underneath his pants.

Bucky brought his face close again and rubbed it against the swell of Tony’s shaft that was revealed in his open fly. As before when he was nuzzling against cloth, he opened his mouth and dragged his lips wetly. He felt Tony relax. The man leaned back on the sofa and let his head loll on the back as he looked up at the ceiling through closed eyes. His ass slid forward on the seat, canting his crotch invitingly upward. 

There was a very tiny sound of surprise when Bucky used his metal hand to free Tony’s cock and balls from his pants. Otherwise, Tony was silent. Even when Bucky’s mouth closed around the head and his tongue circled around the ridge. The only sign that Tony felt what Bucky was doing, was his slower, heavier breaths.

Bucky slid down on his shaft until the head of Tony’s cock pressed against the back of his mouth. He repeated the simple move a few times before he backed off completely and pressed sucking, dragging, tongue-flicking kisses down the underside. Tony’s cock rested across Bucky’s face as he sucked at the skin of the man’s balls, causing them to move and shift. Bucky sucked one into his mouth and let his tongue dance. Tony’s heavy breaths stopped and held, then with a catch, resumed again when Bucky repeated the same to Tony’s other one. As he sucked, he rubbed his face against the base of Tony’s cock. 

He settled his metal hand lightly across the shaft that throbbed on his cheek. Tony gasped and there was a moan. Bucky didn’t move his hand, he just held Tony’s cock more firmly against his face while he sucked at Tony’s balls. He felt Tony’s thighs tense, then the tension released and he sank into the sofa cushions. He just seemed to be enjoying the sensations.

Bucky returned his attentions to Tony’s cock, running his tongue up his shaft with pressure, licking around it while he kept his tongue wet and the glide smooth. Bucky’s sigh carried an appreciative groan at Tony’s length and girth as he took his time moving up it before closing his lips over the head, tasting precome on his tongue. Tony’s regular, solid, heavy breaths returned. 

And his hand went to the back of Bucky’s head. Not pressing or demanding or guiding, just his fingers threading through Bucky’s long hair, fingertips occasionally firmly scraping over his scalp.

He took Tony into the back of his mouth again and moaned around him at the way it felt to have his hair simply played with and not pulled. Bucky’s eyes fluttered shut and a slow writhe worked its way down his body, settling into a slow rocking of his hips. As Bucky bobbed his head on his cock, Tony dropped his arm from the back of the sofa and pressed his palm over the swell of Bucky’s cock, trapped in his pants. Bucky rocked more deliberately against it and the pressure of Tony’s palm increased, giving him something to frot against.

Bucky slid up along the sofa, raising his body over Tony’s leg, balancing on his elbow, pressed on the cushion between the man’s legs. The change in angle let him more expertly bring Tony into his mouth and work his tongue at the same time. 

Tony still gave nothing back but his heavy breaths. Bucky strained to find any reaction to what he was doing, hidden in them. Listening for them, he heard them. Soft grunts when his tongue found a particularly sensitive spot. Breaths held too long whenever Tony was pressed in as far as Bucky was taking him. Released with what sounded almost like frustration when Bucky pulled off and took Tony in no further. And while his hand did nothing to force him, Tony’s fingers responded as they tangled in his hair. Once Bucky was looking for them, he realized that Tony was _awash_ in reaction. And he chased each one.

There was one thing that neither of them was thinking about. The thought tickled at the back of Bucky’s mind, but he pushed it aside in favor of taking Tony into his throat. 

Tony groaned loudly enough to hear, and while his hand didn’t push down, his hips thrust up. Bucky could’ve easily pulled back. Something told him that Tony was deliberately leaving him the choice. He chose to swallow harder and pull Tony in deeper. 

Bucky wasn’t just pressing his cock against Tony’s palm. He was grinding, circling, thrusting, and moaning around Tony’s cock in his mouth. He took Tony in deeper each time. As he pulled back for breath, his tongue swirled around the man’s shaft, then sought out the places that made his breath catch. Bucky took him down further. Further each time until his face was pressed against Tony’s groin. He shifted his elbow that was between Tony’s legs so that his hand could cup and roll the man’s balls as he sucked. Tony’s reactions were still subtle, but the fingers cupped around Bucky’s cock and began jerking him off in his pants. 

Bucky came while Tony was all the way down his throat. His groan rumbled around the man and he held him deep as long as he could before needing to breathe. Tony moved his arm to drape along the sofa back again. His fingers stopped massaging Bucky’s head and his hand rested on the arm of the sofa. 

Bucky shifted positions again slightly and started sucking Tony’s cock with an aim to making him come. Tony liked what his tongue did, but the thing that drove him wild — if any reaction he gave could be called ‘wild’ — was when he was buried as deep in Bucky’s throat as Bucky wanted to take him. When Bucky’s face was pressed against Tony, breathing in his scent, listening for the groaning catch in his breaths, he swallowed hard, his throat massaging Tony’s cock. He held him there as long as he could before he pulled off for a breath, taking no time for finesse before swallowing him straight back down in one fluid motion, to begin the cycle again.

Finally, after Bucky took a breath, Tony’s arm dropped to cup Bucky’s metal shoulder. Through it, he felt Tony’s grip tighten. His hips rose, seeking more depth even though Bucky’s face was ground against him. Tony came down Bucky’s throat.

Bucky held him there, swallowing as long as he could, before sliding off and letting Tony fill his open mouth with the rest of his load. Bucky looked up as he swallowed, hoping to catch Tony’s eye, to get some recognition of what they’d just done. But Tony’s head was leaned all the way back and he still stared, through closed eyelids, straight up at the ceiling. His breath was a fast, caught, and heavy panting. The tension in his body released and he settled solidly into the sofa cushions. Tony moved his hand off of Bucky’s shoulder and his arm back onto the sofa back again, leaving him sprawled out and touching Bucky nowhere.

Bucky closed his lips around the shaft of Tony’s softening cock. He held the man gently in the wet warmth, doing nothing but keeping his mouth open, occasionally taking more of Tony into it as his cock softened more. Eventually he had the entirety of Tony’s cock sitting heavily on his tongue. He didn’t move away until Tony’s breathing was scarcely able to be heard.

He tucked Tony back into his jeans, carefully zipped them up and refastened the button. Bucky rolled onto his other side, facing outward, setting only his head in Tony’s lap. They watched the end of the movie and Tony started the next thing on his playlist. After the intro rolled and the story started developing, Tony’s fingers began playing with Bucky’s hair again. 

About a third of the way through the movie, Tony moved Bucky’s head, got up, and went back downstairs to work. Neither of them said a word.

~~~~~

“If I have to stare at one more equation,” Peter sighed, clicking on the TV, and coming around the sofa. 

He instantly turned the volume down when he saw Bucky stretched out on the sofa, sleeping, facing the back of it. But if Tony was there, he never got to watch anything but Episodes 4 through 7. The prequels and the rest of the sequel trilogy just pissed him off. And Peter wanted to watch Revenge of the Sith. Bucky’s feet were in Peter’s usual spot, but his head was in Tony’s. Peter gently lifted Bucky’s head — the man slept through it — and rested it on his lap. 

When Count Dooku arrived on screen, Peter started running his hand through Bucky’s hair. Before Anakin started acting like an ass, Bucky made a contented sound in his throat.

“I like your hair,” Peter said, smiling down when Bucky looked up.

Bucky turned his face back. “I like your fingers in my hair.”

Peter chuckled quietly. “So does Tony.”

Bucky settled back into Peter’s lap, mulling the conflicting information he now had. His conclusion doesn’t surprise him. He’s certain that if asked, Tony would swear that he had absolutely no reaction at all to what he and Bucky did. When of course, he had hundreds of them. What Tony said about himself, and what that self actually was — when divorced from his image — were very different things. But then who would’ve thought that Bucky Barnes, the former Winter Soldier, liked having his hair played with? 

Apparently Peter wasn’t the only one who sometimes fell asleep in a lap. From Peter’s reaction, Tony must’ve fallen asleep in his lap a time or two, with certain responses brought from that occurrence.

Peter actually liked the prequels. He once committed the sacrilege of saying that Revenge of the Sith was the best movie of all nine. Even though he’d seen it probably approaching a hundred times — though not nearly often enough on Tony’s ridiculously huge, ridiculously high definition living room TV — it never failed to hold his attention. 

That’s what he would say if asked why he didn’t object when he felt Bucky nuzzling at his cock through his jeans. As to why he got hard from it; he was so involved in the movie that he didn’t realize that it wasn’t Tony doing what he often did when truly bored with what Peter was watching. The prequels, if Peter insisted on making Tony sit through them _and_ insisted he shut up during it, bored him. So.

Of course his excuse wore thin if he had to explain why he didn’t object when he watched Bucky’s very cool-looking metal fingers working his jeans open. Or when he watched them close around his cock, taking it out of his fly. Or when Bucky’s beautiful blue eyes met his as he closed his mouth around the head of Peter’s cock.

“Bucky,” he said, giving a half-hearted objection.

Bucky pulled off and grinned. “What’s a little head amongst friends.” He took Peter into his mouth again.

“I doubt Tony will see it that way.” Peter eased back into the sofa, away from Bucky’s deliciously warm, wet mouth.

Bucky’s eyebrow raised and he gave a little shrug. Peter’s eyes went wide.

“Like I said,” Bucky answered, implying his last statement again. “Don’t be mad at him. It wasn’t anything.”

“It was his cock in your mouth.”

Bucky moved forward and his tongue teased the tip of Peter’s still-hard cock. “And it was yours in mine. It doesn’t mean anything more than what it is.” He reached up and ran a metal finger down the length of Peter’s arm. “I like it when you play with my hair.” He paused. “I like it when he plays with my hair.” He licked at the head of Peter’s cock, smiled and shrugged. “I like sucking cock.” His finger ran along Peter’s jawline. “I like the both of you.”

“Did you convince him like that?” Peter asked.

“Nah. He just kinda pretended that nothing was happening while he came down my throat.” Bucky chuckled.

Peter rolled his eyes. “You convinced him.” Peter started gently threading his fingers through Bucky’s hair again and Bucky started sucking his cock again. “He calls you ‘pretty’,” Peter said. His words were slightly slurred, his breath caught after his sentence, but they were said without jealousy. Tony’s cock might’ve wandered… in the same place his was wandering… but he knew what they had together.

Bucky took Peter into the back of his mouth a few more times before pulling off. “He’s in love with you. That makes what we did… what _we’re_ doing… different.”

Peter nodded, but then moaned with surprise when Bucky took one of his balls into his mouth. Bucky did the same things to Peter as he did to Tony. Including holding Peter's cock against his cheek with his metal hand.

“Oh fuck,” Peter groaned. “Fuck.” His cock twitched and throbbed under Bucky’s palm. “That’s… Fuck.” He realized what he was doing and he blushed bright red. “Sorry. I… um… I’ve got a bit of a kink for the armor.

Bucky tried not to laugh. He failed. Peter’s balls slipped out of his mouth and he buried his face against them, stifling the sound until he got himself under control. 

Knowing Peter’s kink now, Bucky circled the boy’s shaft with his hand. He mouthed at the underside, working his way to the head, teasing at the slit with his tongue. He looked up at Peter, his eyes twinkling. “I bet he _loves_ that kink.”

Peter blushed again. “Yeah.” He ran his fingers down Bucky’s arm, from his shoulder to his hand wrapped around him. “But the armor can’t feel this.” He repeated the movement, a little firmer. 

Bucky shuddered and took Peter’s cock back into his mouth. Peter was entirely unreserved in his responses. He moaned, he moved, his fingers tangled hard in Bucky’s hair whenever it felt too good. Peter’s other hand clutched at Bucky’s arm when it was good, when it was building, the fingers of that hand traced along the joints’ lines, along the flat panels, over the curving shape. 

Bucky moaned around Peter, unable to get over the fact that someone wanted to touch him _there._ He was getting close faster than he had with Tony, but he needed more. He took Peter’s wrist in his hand and brought it to rest over the swell of his cock in his pants.

“Oh!” Peter said. His fingers in Bucky’s hair guided him to look up. “Can I?” His hand found the button on Bucky’s jeans.

“Yes please,” Bucky said thicky, sliding off of Peter’s cock just long enough to answer before beginning a slow tease of his tongue along his shaft.

Peter unfastened all the buttons and took Bucky’s cock out of his pants. “You’re big,” he said, wrapping his hand around it and began stroking its length.

Bucky looked up, waited to catch Peter’s eye, smiled, and said, “Tony’s bigger.”

Peter blushed and giggled. “Yeah. He is.”

They both set to making each other come. Peter, being a teenager, came first. But Peter, having learned how to have sex from Tony, didn’t stop what his hand was doing until Bucky came as well. 

There was a towel — and lube, Bucky noted — in the drawer of the end table. Peter cleaned his hand and them both off. They fastened their pants and Bucky turned over in Peter’s lap, looking at the screen.


	7. Jar-Jar Binks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What, it’s an autonomic nerve response with you? Someone plays with your hair and you feel obliged to suck his cock?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi. It's your friendly overworked author here. I've been posting chapters almost daily. I thought I'd have enough time to complete the story in the 7 days since I began. Unfortunately, other stories with hard, fixed time constraints (*ahem* the Messages Series) took up pretty much all of that week and are pressing heavily on the upcoming two weeks as well. But I'm gonna be able to do at least one chapter of this per week and aim for more.
> 
> But I'm gonna hit the end of my completed chapters either tomorrow or the next day. Then I'm gonna have to drop back to weekly updates. Or rather... updates whenever I've finished a chapter, because I have absolutely no self-restraint about getting the work out there right away.
> 
> **This WIP will not be abandoned! I am in love with it too much!**
> 
> It'll probably turn out longer than the 10 chapters I estimated. I have SO MUCH sex and domesticity planned for once Tony and Pretty and Beautiful work things out. Oh yeah, and there's kind of a teensy bit of plot there too.

The movie thing was getting to be… he’d never admit it to Peter, but Tony found himself actually enjoying the process of slowing down his brain for two hours or so. And he’d also never admit it to Peter, but some of the movies the kid stuck on his playlist were… not bad. He liked the ones with a good plot and good writing, but if that was also accompanied with a good looking guy getting half naked in it… Peter knew his tastes when recommending eye-candy.

Nothing on the screen could compete with the sight of Bucky walking into the living room wearing nothing but a towel, his skin glistening with moisture, as he was drying his hair with another towel.

Tony pretended to be interested in the movie instead of what was off to the left of his field of vision and moving closer. He also pretended that his pants weren’t getting tighter at all. 

Without saying anything, Bucky stood in front of Tony, blocking the screen. He finished drying his hair and dropped the towel on the sofa. Still silent, he unbuttoned Tony’s slacks, drew down the zipper, and took his half-hard cock out of his underwear. He leaned over to the side and opened the end table drawer, looking for what he saw when Peter got a towel (since replaced several times) to clean up their mess. Found, Bucky dripped lube over the top of Tony’s cock, wrapped his metal hand around it, coating it, and quickly finishing making Tony hard. Bucky smiled and straddled Tony’s lap. The towel around his waist slid up. 

Tony stretched out as he always had before. One arm draped across the back of the sofa, on arm resting on the arm of it, fingers gripping the curve at the end a little too tightly. He leaned his head back, face tilted toward the ceiling, eyes closed, so he couldn’t notice Bucky looking at him.

Bucky reached behind himself to press Tony against his opening. With a soft sigh, he began to sink very slowly, _very_ slowly, onto Tony’s big, thick cock. Not wanting to touch Tony any more than he had to — despite actually wanting to touch Tony very much — Bucky balanced with his hands on his own thighs as he slid lower and lower. His kept moans almost silent in response to feeling himself deliciously stretched and filled. Tony’s breaths were heavy, but their regularity was broken by silently held in responses that caused them to catch and stutter.

When he was sitting flat on Tony’s lap, Bucky rolled his hips in small, tight circles, then rocking back and forth, only to grind again as he clenched around Tony’s cock. His own was achingly hard and the towel still around him was tented and raised so far that the underside of Bucky’s cock rubbed over Tony’s lower belly and treasure trail whenever he made the rocking motion.

Years of training gave Bucky enough core strength that he was able to slide his hands further down his thighs, to his knees, and push himself straight up. He raised himself nearly off of Tony’s cock and then took him in fast and hard, forcing the air out of his lungs in a grunt. Tony almost made a sound, but balanced it on a held breath.

When Bucky rose again it was as achingly slow as when he first settled onto Tony. He’d rise an inch then slowly settle back down only to rock his hips and rub himself over Tony’s belly. Then two inches and settle. Then three. And settle. Each time he lifted himself up a little further. Each time when he lowered himself, he worked his hips a little longer.

Bucky reached the top of his slow rise and fall, with only the head of Tony’s cock inside him, the towel around his waist was dark with wetness and Tony’s belly was slick with his precome. He was sure that Tony, even if he stayed silent while doing it and deny it ever happened if he were asked, would begin raising up to counter Bucky’s movement. He remained absolutely still, his hips firmly planted on the sofa. The only acknowledgment he gave was the rapidity of his breaths, the frequency of their catch, and the flush raising on his face. Tony gave back even less than when Bucky had him in his mouth. 

Tony’s self-control was a challenge which Bucky began to work towards winning. He wanted to get off, which would be easy riding a cock as thick and long as Tony’s. But more than that, he wanted to get Tony off. And even more than _that_ he wanted to break that self-control. Even if only a little.

He’d hardly ever gotten to do this. A few times Winter was brought out to play, but that was — even in this position — never… pleasant, though he did learn the skill. Before, when he was younger, it was full of fear and doubt and worse, self-loathing. Especially when it felt _this good._ And Bucky had never felt anything that felt _this good._ He wanted desperately to get Tony to show his pleasure. But he couldn’t hold back showing his. 

He’d begun trying to hold himself to Tony’s illusion of silence and restraint. He was losing the ability to do so. Barely breathed moans became louder. Joined by low grunts of pleasure and high whines of need. He tensed and then deep shudders worked through his entire body. When they peaked and then passed, Bucky bit his lips to keep his cries from breaking out. He’d been fucked before and it always (at least when it was _him_ and not Winter) felt good. But nothing like this. 

He _couldn’t._

Bucky fell on top of Tony. His arms wrapped around the man’s chest, sliding between his him and the sofa. His hips moved continuously. Rising and falling, rocking and grinding. His arm… his arm that could _hurt…_ pressed gently into Tony’s back. The hard circle of light that kept Tony alive pressed into Bucky’s chest. His shudder tore through him again, ending in a desperate whimper that he buried in Tony’s neck.

Tony wrapped his arms around Bucky. His hands slid over the man’s sweat-sheened back. One rose up his spine until Tony’s hand wrapped around the back of his neck, held a moment, then went up into his hair.

“That’s it, pretty,” Tony murmured. He pressed his lips against Bucky’s hair in an almost-but-not-quite kiss. “I have you. Go on, pretty. Get what you need.”

Bucky let himself go, riding and writhing, chasing after each thing that felt good, each thing that felt better. He stopped trying to hold anything in. His body quaked, his voice broke, and it remained just out of his reach. He tried again. Ran after it, felt it slip away, whimpered at its loss. Each time he tried, he lost the chase sooner. The desire, the _need,_ ached so much it hurt.

Tony brushed Bucky’s hair back from his face, still buried in his neck. He turned his head and put a kiss on Bucky’s temple. “It’s okay, Bucky. It’s okay,” he said softly. “You can want this. It’s okay to want this,” he added in a whisper. “Go on, pretty. Let it happen.” Tony tangled his fingers in Bucky’s hair, sliding through it, massaging his scalp. Bucky felt it build in him again. Tony felt the tension, tight around him, hot, pulsing, sliding along his length, threatening to send him over too soon but he held back. Bucky quivered in his arms, too close to move. Tony rocked his hips, thrusting steadily, rapidly into him. “That’s it, Bucky. Let go, pretty. Come for me.”

Bucky’s groan began deep, broke, caught, began again, ripped itself from his body and found its way into the crook of Tony’s neck, as he came, spilling hot between their stomachs. Panting, shaking, floating somewhere just outside his body, Bucky felt Tony thrust hard and fast up into him with sharp snaps of his hips. Tony’s heavy breaths held. His arm tightened around Bucky’s back. Thrust deep inside, he came. Tony’s held breath hitched and released on an almost silent groan of pleasure.

It filled Tony with conflicting emotions, but he didn’t let go of Bucky when it was over. He didn’t pretend nothing had happened. Not yet. Their bodies relaxed, Tony settled Bucky on top of him, guided his head into a comfortable position on his shoulder and held him. One hand soothed down his back, the other ran through his hair.

“Sorry,” Bucky said sheepishly as he sat back up on Tony’s lap after he’d calmed. He found the towel he was drying his hair with, tossed on the sofa where he left it, and started cleaning the mess from both of them.

“I’ve been messy before, pretty. Nothing to be sorry about,” Tony said. His voice was quiet, as if seeking a middle ground between silence and whisper.

Bucky ducked his head. “Not what I was saying sorry about,” he said. He finished wiping their bellies and rose from Tony’s lap. “I won’t…” He straightened the towel around his waist. “It won’t happen again.” 

Tony sat up and reached out, running his fingers down Bucky’s arm, trying to catch his hand. He wasn’t fast enough. Bucky slipped away and headed down the hall for his room.

~~~~~

 _That_ was never spoken of. But then, nothing was ever spoken of. But _that_ never happened again.

Like everything else Tony would never admit to, he’d never admit to coming upstairs to take a break and deciding against it, heading back down to the workshop, if Bucky wasn’t sleeping on the sofa. 

If he was, Tony would never admit to noticing that Bucky wasn’t always sleeping when he was sleeping on the sofa. 

When Bucky was sleeping, or ‘sleeping’, on the sofa, and Tony came upstairs to take a break, things went pretty much as they did the first time. With Tony silently pretending nothing was happening. While he was constantly petting Bucky’s hair. And Bucky was giving him a blowjob. Then they’d watch whatever movie Tony had been pretending to watch in the first place.

~~~~~

Bucky and Peter worked through all nine Star Wars movies and Rogue One, with exactly the same activities as they had done before. Then Peter insisted that since he’d only seen them once and any Star Wars movie required repeated viewings, they started back up at Phantom Menace.

“Oh you are NOT!” Tony said when he came home and saw an enormously large Jar-Jar Binks on his giant TV screen.

“Peter is show mesa dha prequels,” Bucky said in Gungan. 

Peter laughed so hard that Bucky nearly rolled off his lap.

Tony pulled his watch over his hand and blasted the TV with his repulsor. “That’s enough of _that.”_ He glared at Bucky. “If you talk like that again…”

Bucky landed in the space between the sofa and the coffee table, Peter followed and they both were laughing so hard they were tangled up in each other.

Tony stopped, blinked, cocked his head to the side, and considered the position he saw Peter and Bucky on the sofa in _before_ he saw an enormous Gungan profaning his TV. Peter sitting in Tony’s spot. Bucky’s head in his lap, facing the TV. He looked back and forth between Peter and Bucky as he recognized the position.

“What? He can suck _you_ off but not me?” Peter said, fake-miffed.

“Wha…” Tony looked between the two again.

“I’m sorry, Tony,” Bucky said, disentangling himself from Peter on the floor and scrambling to stand up.

“No, no. I mean… uh… fuck.” Tony ran his hand up into his hair. “I guess we need to talk.”

“You _think?”_ Peter said. “Though it mighta been nice to talk _before_ you put your dick in his mouth.”

“Baby, it… Fuck… I’m sorry.”

Peter rolled his eyes and shook his head. “I swear to god, if I catch your cock in anyone _except_ me or Bucky…”

“There’s an exception to you?” Tony asked Peter, arching his eyebrow.

“I guess that’s what we need to talk about,” Peter said. “Bucky, you don’t get to slink off to your room. It was his cock, but it was your mouth.”

“It was your cock, too,” Bucky muttered to Peter. “Just as many times as it was his.”

Tony laughed. “What, it’s an autonomic nerve response with you? Someone plays with your hair and you feel obliged to suck his cock?” 

Bucky, finally frustrated by over two months of denial winding its way through the penthouse, boldly walked over to Tony and gently ran his hand up into Tony’s hair. “I dunno, Tony. What’s this make you want to do?”

Tony reached up, grabbed a handful of Bucky’s hair and pulled him down into an absolutely filthy kiss. When Bucky went to let go of Tony’s hair, Tony put his hand over Bucky’s and held it there until he started playing with his hair again. He nipped his lip, let them both catch a breath, and then began kissing him again.

“That,” Tony said, when he finally broke their kiss, “is what it makes me want to do.” Bucky was standing there, eyes half-closed, lips parted and bruised, stunned and panting.

“Bucky dot e x e has stopped functioning,” Peter said smiling as he slid up along side Tony, wrapping his arm around the man’s waist.

“Fuck,” Bucky breathed out softly as his world came back into focus.

“Hey, pretty,” Tony said, stroking the side of Bucky’s face gently. “You okay?” he asked with a smirk.

Peter gave a soft chuckle and leaned against Tony’s shoulder. “He kinda breaks you with that,” he said to Bucky.

“Yeah.”


	8. Different

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter grew very quiet. “Are you going to take him from me?” He tried to keep the shudder out of his breath, the break out of his voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is coming. But it looks like I'm going to be moving to weekly postings for the foreseeable. There's just too many pressing WIPs with time constraints and then there's life y'know? But this fic is NOT GOING TO BE ABANDONED!!! I am far too in love with Pretty and Beautiful and Tony.

Bucky stood apart from the couple. “I’m sorry.”

“For?” Peter asked.

“I shouldn’t have done _any_ of that.” He lowered his eyes. “I knew you were together. I shouldn’t have…”

Peter crossed over to Bucky, reached up and ran his fingers through his hair. “You weren’t the only one who did something, y’know?”

“I started it though. I’ll find another place to stay,” he said quietly, sadly.

“I said we needed to talk.” Tony sat down at the dining table. “‘We need to talk’ does not mean ‘you need to move out’.”

Peter looked back and forth between Tony and Bucky. Bucky looked both crestfallen and terrified. Tony looked more tight and tense than he’d seen him since before he moved in. And there was guilt. So much guilt. Though he imagined there was a fair share of that on his face now as well. What Tony felt guilty for doing to Peter, Peter was also guilty of having done the same to him. Bucky fit into that equation somewhere. But Peter hadn’t been forced to go along with what Bucky did, and he doubted Tony had either. He could’ve said ‘no’ that first time. Or any of the times, including that afternoon, since.

But in the moment… Peter loved Tony so much that it felt like his entire heart could burst with it. Like his entire body was singing. Nothing about that had changed. Bucky didn’t make him feel like that. But he did make him feel _something._ At first he thought it was just sex. The way Bucky described it: ‘what’s a little head amongst friends’. But even then, even that first time, when it was just ‘amongst friends’, Peter felt something. Something warmer than the friendship he had with MJ or Ned. Something cooler than the love he had with Tony. _Something._

Bucky went and sat in what had become his place at the dining table. Peter looked between them again.

“No,” he said, determinedly. “No,” he said, more tenderly. 

“We _need_ to talk, Peter,” Bucky said, his voice still quiet, his voice still sad.

“We do. Just not here.” He walked over to the table and stood between the two men. “It’s too… cold.” He furrowed his brow. That wasn’t the right word. “Too… clinical.” That wasn’t the right word either. He gave up on words and took one each of their hands in his. He walked backwards, away from the table.

Bucky and Tony stood to follow, though they both thought the trio was headed to the sofa and started in that direction. Only to be pulled away and led down the hall.

“Talk, not fuck,” Tony said. “That’s what got us into this situation.”

“You _can_ do more than fuck in a bed, Tony. I know that might be a new concept.” Peter grinned.

Peter kicked off his shoes, tugged off his socks, and lost his pants, leaving himself in a t-shirt and boxer briefs. “Get comfy, but not naked.” He climbed onto the bed, grabbed a pillow and the small throw at the foot of the bed. Propping himself up on his side, he got ‘comfy’.

Tony stripped down to his boxers. He sat cross-legged on the bed, down around where Peter had his knees bent. Bucky took off his shoes and socks, then hesitantly climbed into bed, otherwise fully clothed.

“Nope,” Peter said, looking at him. 

Bucky finished getting into the bed, still dressed. He sat much like Tony was. He and Tony made two points and Peter made a long side to a triangle. An appropriate shape, he thought. 

When he and Steve slept together, Steve slept nude and Bucky slept pantsless. Never shirtless. They never showered together, not even after sex. Steve had seen him shirtless, of course, but not often and never for long.

After he was sitting comfortably, Bucky peeled off his shirt and tossed it onto the pile of everyone else’s clothes. Neither Peter nor Tony stared. Nor did they deliberately look away. They… nothinged. 

“I’m sorry,” Bucky began. 

“I’m not,” Tony said quietly.

Peter raised an eyebrow.

“I’m sorry that I hurt you, if I did, Peter.” Tony reached out and put one hand on Peter’s knee. “That I _am_ sorry about.” He reached out and put his other hand on Bucky’s knee. “What I’m not sorry about…” He was _vastly_ sexually experienced. He’d fucked many different combinations of people in many different numbers. But this wasn’t that. 

“I’m not sorry about the way it felt running my fingers through your hair,” Tony said tenderly. “I’m not sorry about the way you felt relaxing in my lap. I’m not sorry about the contented little sounds you made when you went down on me. I’m not sorry about the way you, at first, tensed when I wrapped my fingers around your cock through your pants and then felt you completely give yourself over to it. The way I got to feel all of that…” He looked Bucky in the eye. “All of that _fear_ falling away. And god, I am so not sorry about the way you fell on me when you were riding me. The way you clung to me. The way I held you. The way I felt you take what you needed and give me that pain.” Tony let his hands fall back into his lap and looked at them lying there. “I’m not sorry about any of that.”

He looked at Peter. “I’m sorry if that hurt you. I’m so in love with you, Peter. But I… I have different feelings for Bucky.”

“Pity.” Bucky’s voice was sad and bitter.

“No.” It was Peter who corrected him. “Not pity. Not the same thing I feel for Tony. That’s… that’s beyond words. But what I feel for you… that’s not pity.” Peter reached across the space between them and touched Bucky’s right, flesh, hand. “There’s… sadness there. But that’s not out of pity…” He played with Bucky’s fingers as he tried to figure out his words. “It’s out of caring about you. When you care about someone, you don’t want to see them hurt. You don’t want them to have ever been hurt before.” He looked up at the man. “When you find me having a nightmare, when Tony’s not here, do you hold me because you pity me?”

“Of course not.”

“Do you…” He wasn’t so sure that the next answer was going to be what he wanted to hear. “Hold me only because that’s what I need to calm down?”

Bucky reached out and brushed a curl from Peter’s forehead, like he did when Peter was trying to fall back asleep. “It’s because I care about you and it hurts to know you’ve been hurt.”

There was a silence as they all thought about what had been said.

“Are you in love with me?” Tony asked, turning toward Bucky. He was aware that he was the point on which this, the three of them, seemed to pivot, despite Bucky being the one they’d both been having sex with.

“I… I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Peter asked. “Or you think you shouldn’t say?”

“Both,” Bucky said after a long pause. “I know that I’m happier with you… with _both_ of you… than I ever actually was with Steve. Than I think I ever could’ve been once we started again.” He paused again. “I think I loved a Steve that didn’t exist after… what he became. Not that he became stronger, that he wasn’t sick anymore, that he was big, not those things. It was… He played a role on stage when he was drumming up support for war bonds. When he finally went into battle… when he started leading the Howling Commandos… Steve was gone and all that there was was the role. That’s only gotten worse.

“So I don’t know if I love you. Either of you. Both of you. Or if there’s just…” Bucky closed his eyes and sighed.

“A void,” Tony provided.

“So I don’t know about _love._ But I know about _care._ And I know there’s something… That’s why _that_ never happened again.”

“The two of you fucked,” Peter said, trying to keep an even tone. ‘A little head amongst friends’, like Bucky had said… it surprised him, but that didn’t make him jealous at all. Fucking… the things that Tony described… he was torn. He wanted Bucky to feel that. He knew how it felt. How safe he felt in Tony’s arms when they fucked. How overwhelmed he could get and how that overwhelmingness… it didn’t make everything all right. Things weren’t that simple. But it, at least during his waking hours, the security of it… it _healed._ He wanted Bucky to know that feeling. But that was his.

Peter grew very quiet. “Are you going to take him from me?” He tried to keep the shudder out of his breath, the break out of his voice.

“Oh Peter, no. Not ever. I don’t ever want to do that,” Bucky said.

“No one ever _wants_ it when it starts.” Peter couldn’t open his eyes.

“Baby…” Tony rocked himself forward and pulled Peter into his lap. “This is over if it hurts you. I won’t ever leave you. I won’t ever hurt you. Baby… you’re… my everything.”

Peter pulled his head out of Tony’s neck. His face was tear-streaked, but he’d stopped crying. He smiled at Bucky. “When he holds you like that…” He rested his head against Tony’s chest while he kept smiling at Bucky. “It’s… _safe.”_ He reached his hand out to the man and held it there until Bucky took it in his metal hand. 

He looked up at Tony. “I _want_ not to mind it. I want Bucky to have that. I want him not to run away and be afraid of it the next time it happens.” Peter shuddered. “But Tony, if you leave me, I’ll die.”

“Not gonna happen, baby.” Tony put a light kiss on Peter’s lips. “It might be a fucked up one, but how can I live without my heart?” He put Peter’s other hand, pressed palm flat, over his arc reactor.

Peter looked between the two men. “I don’t want to be there. I mean I wouldn’t mind, but I don’t need to be there, but… I think I might like it if one of you told me after it happened? I don’t know if that will help. This is all so much ‘I don’t know’. But if one of you tell me… I can be more happy for the two of you and maybe not so scared. And it won’t feel like you’re… cheating. God that’s ridiculous. Because of course it’s all cheating…”

“It’s not if we don’t lie, Peter. Lies make things cheating. Lying since it started… that’s probably my biggest regret.”

“Mine as well,” Bucky said. “I never wanted to lie to you, Peter. Or you, Tony. I know how much Steve’s lies hurt you.” 

Tony sighed. He didn’t know why those lies hurt so much and this didn’t. “This isn’t like that… doesn’t feel like that… I don’t know why.”

“Who was first?” Peter asked, looking at Bucky.

“Tony. Then you two days later. After, it’s been more-or-less balanced.” He smiled at Peter. “You’re more difficult. You’re not home as much when he’s not.”

Peter laughed. This was all much easier to take sitting in Tony’s lap. He turned a little to the side and held his arm open. Bucky slid closer and Tony balanced on his other arm, letting the man find a spot to rest his head on his thigh. 

“So,” Tony said, putting a kiss on the side of Peter’s head and shifting around until he could run his fingers in Bucky’s hair. “This seems to work… at least a little. But there are some jealousies,” he added. “Peter wants to know when we fuck. You, Pretty?”

“Oh, I’m the guest in this situation,” Bucky said.

“That doesn’t mean you don’t have feelings about it all.”

“Keep playing with my hair,” Bucky grinned up at Tony. “I really do get gone from that. Even when I wore it short. You lied to me.”

“When?” Tony said, shocked.

“When you told me you didn’t like your hair played with.”

“I don’t.”

“Uh huh,” Bucky and Peter said, disbelievingly, in unison.

Tony rolled his eyes. “God when Pretty and Beautiful gang up on me, I’m not gonna stand a chance.”

“Can I sleep in here with you both sometimes? Even if we haven’t _done_ anything?” Bucky asked, after a pause.

“I’d really like that,” Peter said.

“Yeah,” Tony agreed. “Anything done or not. It’s a big bed.”

“It’s the size of my whole damn apartment back in Brooklyn.”

“It _is_ not,” Tony countered.

“Damn near.”

“It’s his former orgy bed,” Peter teased.

“Okay. Bucky likes his hair played with… no surprises there. And he’d like to sleep with us. And… as long as we tell Peter, I’d like to fuck you again if you’d like that.”

“Yes please.”

“Do you just like to get fucked?” Peter asked. “Or do you like fucking too?”

“I’m fairly vers. I like getting fucked a little bit more, but it’s not a one or the other thing with me.”

“It is with me,” Peter said. “I haven’t ever felt the desire to fuck anyone. Even with our horizons broadened, that’s still the case. Is that okay, Bucky? That I’m not gonna want to fuck you?”

“Would you like me to fuck you?” Bucky asked. “If Tony’s okay with it?” They both looked at Tony.

“Peter’s never been with anyone but me,” Tony explained. “I’ve gotta think…” he said slowly, letting the words trail off into a pause. “Would ‘if I’m there’ work for you both? Not just telling me about it. I’d want…” He bit his lips. This was all so unusual. To even consider the possibility of _sharing_ Peter. He was probably the most possessive person in the universe. It didn't bother him that Bucky had been going down on Peter as long as he’d been doing it to him. But fucking was more… intimate. “I have to be there,” he finally said, having come to a conclusion. “Are you both willing to do that? Because, otherwise, no.”

“I told you, I’m the guest here,” Bucky said. “I’ll do whatever you say.”

“Stop it,” Peter said. “You’re the third, yes. I’ll agree that’s the situation we’re in… we seem to be in… But you have a say.”

“Whatever happens,” Tony said, “we all have to agree. Lies are the absolute hard limit for me. Don’t tell me that something’s okay and then have it fester and twist into lies.”

“I’m okay with you being there if I fuck Peter.” He cast his eyes downward. A hint of a smile played at his lips. “I think…”

Peter smiled. “I think we both like it that way.”

Bucky looked up at him and met his smile. “Yes.”

“Peter, I know you don’t have any experience with any of this, not just trying to work out a relationship, but just… in bed with multiple partners. Bucky? Do you?” Tony asked.

“Winter did. Often,” Bucky said with distaste. “But me? When there was more than one, you ever saw them again after the party was over,” Bucky explained. “Or if you did, you _never_ acknowledged it because it was dangerous. It was… a different time.”

“So you don’t even really have experience with…” Tony sought for the words. He knew what the sorts of parties Bucky described were like amongst closeted men. But he also knew what it was like to have multiple partners in your bed that you _didn’t_ shy away from in fear after you came. Who stayed the night in your bed and you woke up in a tangle of bodies, kissing whoever happened to be laying next to you before the writhing mass became entangled again. And to have that go on for an entire weekend. 

“Experience with affection and multiple partners,” Tony explained. “But a relationship… None of us have ever navigated those waters. Not even me. The longest an orgy ever lasted was…” he looked at the ceiling to compare the memories of the events. “Eight and a half days. Though the number of guys varied as they came and went. With girls it was three, and I was more of a… voyeur. With a mix, it was five.”

Both Peter’s and Bucky’s eyes went wide. 

“Jesus fucking Christ, Tony,” Peter exclaimed.

Tony grinned. “It was a well earned reputation. I needed a big bed.”

Bucky laughed. “We defer to you expertise.”

“No shit,” Peter added, laughing along.

“You don’t fuck for that long without there being long periods of just… lying about and getting snuggly. If some people in the bed were more there for a chance at getting to a certain someone, little jealousies popped up. Little ones, because…” Tony shrugged. “Even eight and a half days isn’t very long for that stuff to _really_ happen. And I guess if someone got too bent out of shape, they left. I never noticed. 

“But this…” He ran his finger down Bucky’s arm and tightened his hold around Peter’s waist. “Jealousies are gonna happen. The minute anybody lies about it, this ends for me. Which, if Peter wants to stay with me, means it ends for him too. Sorry baby. I know that doesn’t sound fair, but you know that’s how I work. You knew that from the beginning. I’m possessive as fuck.” 

Tony looked down at Bucky. “And damn, Pretty, if you don’t make me feel just a little bit possessive too. But if you ever do find a certain someone who’s like Peter for you, I’ll let you go, okay? Not because I don’t care about you or I don’t want you, but because I want you to be happy. Meanwhile… If you’re gonna park that pretty piece of tail in this bed, this bed is it. Me and Peter. As long as this goes on, the three of us are exclusive.” Tony ran his fingers through Bucky’s hair. Hey, no one ever said he played fair. “Is that okay?”

“You feel possessive about me?” Bucky said, a confused look on his face.

“Yeah, Pretty. I am a greedy, possessive, demanding fuck. What’s mine, I like to stay mine. We can talk about looser things as long as everything’s kept oral. But if I’m gonna fuck you. If we’re gonna share what _that_ was. _That’s_ gotta be mine.”

“I…” Bucky’s blue eyes were dark when he looked up at Tony. “Yeah. _That’s_ yours.”

“Don’t worry, Pretty,” Tony said tenderly, still threading his fingers through Bucky’s hair. “I take care of Beautiful, I’ll take care of you too. Two strong men who could break me like a twig, but who I’ll keep safe because that’s what all three of us are looking for from each other.” He leaned his head against Peter, and his hand slid down Bucky’s back, firmly holding him. 

Tony drew a deep, shuddering breath and paused. His voice broke when he spoke. “Peter, I love you. God baby, I love you _entirely._ But Bucky… there aren’t words. The vocabulary isn’t deep enough. It’s not what I feel for Peter. But it’s so not friends-with-benefits either. It’s… a different kind of love, I guess. I love you Peter. God, I never thought I’d say this, but I love you _different,_ Bucky.” 

They sat together for a long while. “Is that okay, Beautiful?” Tony asked Peter.

Peter sighed. “Yes.” He reached down and slipped his fingers into Bucky’s hair alongside of Tony’s. “We love you _different,_ but we love you.”


	9. Kissing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Pretty, I _know_ that kind of kiss. It’s hot. And it’s fast. And it’s hard. And it is fuckin’ incredible. I love that kind of kiss. When you’re in the middle of fucking and you’re so far gone that you’re nothing but _need._ That kind of kiss is…” Tony sighed and let his eyes roll heavenward. Bucky grinned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for everyone who's expecting chapter 10 on Friday, the 21st. I had a major crisis of accidentally deleting ALL of my tumblr blogs, including the starker one and the one I'd had as my main since 2012. Then, as if that wasn't a enough of a 'happy birthday' to me, Monday I wound up in the hospital for a couple of days. I'm home, but still sort of dragged out and not working up to speed yet. 
> 
> **Chapter 10 will be out by the FOLLOWING Friday, the 28th.**
> 
> Following on every Friday. At the latest. I'm hoping to finish well before then. Chapter count has been increased to 13 because dealing with 3 people's feelings and putting 3 bodies into sexual positions takes more chapters than when it's just 2 ;)

Tony turned and stretched out on the bed, propping himself up on a couple of pillows, laying on his back. Peter settled on one side of him, Bucky on the other.

“Hmm. Keeping up with two of you is gonna kill me. I’m an old man with a weak heart,” Tony said, grinning as he put a kiss on each of their foreheads.

“I’m older,” Bucky said.

“Yeah, but you’re like he is. Immortal or something. I’ve already died twice.”

“Oh drama queen,” Peter said, rolling his eyes. “You weren’t dead either time.”

“There were obituaries. I was dead.”

“He always like this?” Bucky asked Peter.

“Uh huh.”

“Gang up on me again, Pretty and Beautiful, and I’ll show you what trouble three bodies can get into.”

“Was that supposed to be a threat?” Peter asked.

“Brat.”

“So,” Bucky began. “I’m vers, Peter’s a bottom, and you?” 

“Is that your not-so-subtle way of asking if I’m gonna let you fuck me?”

“Maybe.”

Tony laughed. “We’ll see. I’m probably about ninety-nine percent top. Not saying I’ve never been fucked or that I’ve never enjoyed it. It’s just a very rare mood. And when I did, it was a…” he screwed up his mouth, trying to find the word, “sensation thing. I mean, other than when I was a whole lot younger and had this huge crush on a guy. But that didn’t last. A different pretty piece of tail,” he teased Bucky’s back with his fingers, “a beautiful just-past-jailbait boy,” he teased Peter’s, “walked by and that was the end of my crush.”

“We should object to him calling us that,” Peter said.

“Yeah, but it feels too good when he does,” Bucky countered.

Tony gave Bucky a deep kiss. He turned and gave Peter a deeper one. When he broke the kiss, he put his head back on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling. His brow furrowed and he bent down to kiss Peter again, absolutely passionately, absolutely filthy, probably going on far longer than was polite to the other person in their bed.

“I don’t know…” Tony said when he leaned back from Peter. He closed his eyes briefly. “I… god! I never thought… I have no problem with him sucking your dick or you sucking his. I have no problem with him fucking your ass,” Tony muttered.

“Kissing?” Peter asked, trying not to be disappointed, because he had to admit, the idea of kissing Bucky… that was something he wanted.

“Yeah. No. I dunno. Maybe?” Tony said, his eyebrow raised questioningly as he winced. 

“We could find out,” Bucky suggested, helpfully.

“C’mere, Pretty.” When Bucky leaned up closer to Tony, Tony kissed him. He started out slowly. The way he liked to do with Peter. He didn’t let Bucky deepen the kiss sooner than he wanted. He teased the edges of Bucky’s lips. He tasted the swell of them. The traced the cupid’s bow with the tip of his tongue. His mind marked the difference in sensation, beard against beard, the scrape of it against his face. The little bit of struggle Bucky was giving him about taking over.

Tony broke the kiss for a moment. He shifted his position to turn slightly more toward Bucky then looked over his shoulder at Peter. “Would you…” He sucked in his lips. “Kinda curl up around my back? Hold onto me? Hold me close?” he asked, his voice quieting and sounding embarrassed to ask such a thing, especially to ask it in front of Bucky. “I want you to touch me while I kiss Bucky,” Tony said, finally explicitly saying what he wanted.

Peter smiled and slid closer, spooning around Tony’s back as Tony rolled himself and Bucky onto their sides, face to face. Tony let himself kiss Bucky the way he’d been dreaming of every time that he was trying so hard to keep himself restrained. As if not reacting to what they were doing somehow made it not cheating. Tony started out again, kissing him the same way he did Peter. But Bucky wasn’t Peter. 

“I love kissing you the way I kissed you earlier,” Tony said, looking at Bucky, brushing his hair back from his face. 

“You like breaking us,” Peter said, smiling, looking around Tony’s at them both. His smile turned into a grin. “You like knowing that with nothing more than a fuckin’ kiss, you can do…” Peter’s grin vanished. His eyes closed, he sighed, and his body writhed against Tony’s back.

Bucky reached across Tony’s middle and ran his hand down Peter’s arm. “Yeah… he can do that.”

“You’d be surprised how many people that doesn’t work on,” Tony said, chuckling.

“I don’t believe you,” Peter said.

“It’s true. But you’re right. I do love breaking boys,” he said with a smirk.

“I’m not a boy,” Bucky objected, quite firmly.

Tony turned back to him. He slipped his arm around Bucky’s chest and pulled him close. He loved kissing Peter, Tony could spend _days_ kissing Peter, but he _loved_ it when Peter kissed back or started the kiss. “Then _kiss me_ when I kiss you.” 

Tony started kissing the way he always did, soft, slow, exploring Bucky’s lips gently. Bucky let him for awhile. When Tony began kissing, it was like nothing Bucky had ever experienced before. Tenderness. From another man. Something he had plenty of experience with when he was kissed by girls. But a girl’s arms weren’t strong around him. A girl didn’t have a beard that grazed his face. And a girl most definitely didn’t have a cock, heavy and tumescent in those ridiculous silk boxers Tony wore, resting against his thigh. They were sensations he’d never even knew how to _dream_ of, but had always wanted.

He pulled Tony closer, pressing his lips against Tony’s, hard. Bucky slid his hand up into Tony’s hair. It wasn’t a tug, but neither was it gentle. He sucked Tony’s bottom lip into his mouth and bit. Smiling, he licked to soothe the bite then pulled them together fiercely again. His kiss was hard and fast where Tony’s had been soft and slow. Bucky didn’t have Tony’s patience. Over and over, he brought Tony into a fierce kiss. The harder Bucky kissed, the harder Tony kissed back. It was hot and intense and endless. As it went on, it was impossible to tell who was kissing whom. 

Bucky tangled Tony’s leg with his, bringing them closer. But his right arm, that was underneath Tony, reached up to find Peter, keeping him close as well. He broke his and Tony’s kiss. He reached his left hand down to Tony’s waist, but slid across it until he’d found Peter’s. Bending over Tony’s shoulder, Bucky pulled Peter into a kiss. Fierce and hard and biting, the same way he’d kissed Tony. His tongue found its way into Peter’s mouth and sought out the boy’s to suck on. When he left Peter moaning, he went back to Tony. Bucky started the same way he’d left off, demanding, his hands clutching at one, then the other, of them. 

Then with a final bite to Tony’s upper lip, Bucky looked up at him. A little smirk teased his lips. He pushed on Tony’s shoulder, just enough to give him the hint that Bucky wanted him on his back, flat on the bed, propped on the pillows he’d been resting on before. He draped himself up high on half of Tony’s chest then pulled Peter into the same, but opposite, position. “Kiss us, Tony,” he said. He leaned over and gave Peter a quick, open mouthed kiss.

Peter slipped one arm underneath Tony’s arm. His other he draped across Tony’s body and settled on Bucky’s waist. Bucky matched his movement. Peter kissed Bucky back, the same way he kissed when Tony asked him for one instead of giving him one. “Yes, Tony. Kiss us.”

“Really,” Tony drawled with a smile. “Maybe I just wanna lay here and watch Pretty and Beautiful make out instead.”

They both leaned across Tony’s chest and kissed. Bucky kissed as hard, right from the beginning, as Tony did after working himself up to unbearable levels of desire. Peter was soft and open but, in his own way, he kissed back. They’d been far more open with their reactions when Bucky went down on Peter. But they hadn’t kissed. They had a lot to make up for. Their kiss went on for a very long time. And Tony found out that, while he thought it would bother him, it didn’t bother him at all. It was beautiful, actually. It was _different._

“Kiss me,” Bucky said, panting after breaking his kiss with Peter. He leaned down and pressed his lips lightly to Tony’s. 

Tony’s hand went up into Bucky’s hair, tangling the long strands into his fist. He pulled Bucky’s head back. “Kiss you?” 

Bucky murmured his assent. 

With a squeeze to Peter’s shoulder, Tony rolled over, pushing Bucky flat onto the bed, laying on top of him. He ground their bodies together. “Kiss you, huh?” Tony’s other hand gently cupped the side of Bucky’s face, in contrast to how hard he was pulling Bucky’s hair. He brushed his lips across Bucky’s. “You sure you want me to kiss you, Pretty?”

“Uh huh.”

“Like you kissed me?” 

“Uh huh.”

Tony kissed Bucky deeply, his tongue delved into the other man’s mouth. He cupped both sides of Bucky’s face in his and moved him how he wanted him to move. He held him to his kiss. When Bucky wouldn’t yield, Tony bit. Hard. He tasted blood. His tongue didn’t soothe, he sucked. And he pressed his kiss deeper again. When he felt the start of Bucky’s surrender, Tony pulled away. He waited until Bucky chased after him. He held him and met his eye with a stare. Bucky whimpered almost silently. Tony leaned in and licked across his lips. Then pulled back again. Bucky chased him. That time Tony took control. Hard and deep and fast. But only once. Not repeating. When they broke for breath, Tony kept them apart.

“Kiss you?” Tony asked.

“Uh huh,” Bucky said again, his eyes were almost black with desire. His body twisted beneath Tony’s. He reached down and his hand slipped between them and loosened the top button of his pants.

Tony grabbed Bucky’s wrist harshly but then brought it up rest gently on his waist instead. 

“Pretty, I _know_ that kind of kiss. It’s hot. And it’s fast. And it’s hard. And it _is_ fuckin’ incredible. I love that kind of kiss. When you’re in the middle of fucking and you’re so far gone that you’re nothing but _need._ That kind of kiss is…” Tony sighed and let his eyes roll heavenward. Bucky grinned. 

Tony paused as he ran his fingers gently along the sharp line of Bucky’s jaw. “And if you’re not _there?_ It’s the kind of kiss you get when it’s the only kind of kiss you _can_ get. When you’re desperate for something that you know you can’t _ever_ keep til morning. Baby…” He brushed Bucky’s hair from his face. “It’s the kind of kiss that I’ve given and gotten dozens of times in back rooms and dark alleys and _those_ kinds of parties where you never let the other guys know you saw them there.” Tony rolled them back onto their sides. He felt Peter curl up against his back the way they’d been before. “I’ll kiss you, Bucky. _When you’ve kissed me.”_

He tried again. Sweet and so very gentle. Deepening it slowly. Pulling back to let Tony catch a breath long before he needed one. Again with a little more tongue. Again soft. Again more confidently but not expecting more than when he kissed Peter. Not _letting_ there be more than when he kissed Peter. 

Bucky kissed one last time with that smug overconfidence that Tony knew too intimately. Tony broke the kiss. He placed a line of kisses, wet and dragging open mouthed, over the stubble on Bucky’s jaw until he got just below the man’s ear. “I’m not a girl, Bucky,” he whispered quietly, his voice tender. He kissed Bucky lightly behind his ear and kept his voice a whisper. “Kiss me the way you wanted to kiss me when you fell on me.” 

Bucky wrapped his arms around Tony’s chest, sliding them between Tony’s back and Peter. With a quick kiss to Tony’s shoulder, Peter moved a little bit away. He was surprised that he didn’t feel even the least little bit of jealousy watching them kiss. He was watching Tony do something that, if you’d asked him yesterday, he would’ve sworn would’ve devastated him. But that was before his enhanced senses heard Tony’s whisper. He wasn’t even jealous anymore that they had fucked. Peter still wanted to know, in the future, when it happened, but it felt different now. He propped himself up on his elbow so he could look down at Tony and Bucky and watch them kiss. He smiled softly as he watched the shudder work its way through Bucky as he buried his face in Tony’s neck. 

Tony held Bucky through his shudders, threading his fingers through his hair, not rushing it until his tension passed. He nuzzled against the man’s face, guiding him to come out of his neck in the same way he did to Peter when Peter was overwhelmed yet had calmed but was still afraid to pull away. When Bucky had his head back on the pillows, he gave Tony a hesitant smile. Tony whispered against his lips. “Kiss me, Bucky.”

Bucky slid his hand up to hold Tony’s neck. Not pulling, but caressing. He kissed him lightly and his hesitant smile turned sincere. His eyes smiled before they closed. He parted his lips and Tony met him but took it no further. When Bucky brought the kiss home it was hard and passionate, and _slow._ And Tony met him again, but no further. Instead, Tony’s hands wandered over his back. Not softly, but… wantingly. Bucky moaned into the kiss, broke it and began again deeper. His hand left Tony’s neck and both hands ran over his body. 

Bucky reached between them and traced the full circle of metal in Tony’s chest with the fingertip of his left hand while he kissed him. He smiled into the kiss again when Tony’s palm caressed over the round of his shoulder and fingers continued down to follow the line where metal joined flesh. Bucky teased with his tongue against Tony’s lips as his fingertip slipped off the silver circle of the arc reactor to trace where it fit into Tony’s chest. 

Tony chuckled softly against Bucky’s lips as their hands resumed a more normal exploration of their bodies. He slid his mouth down and dragged his lips across the day’s growth of his beard. Bucky nuzzled at _his_ face, raising it and bringing their kiss together again. 

He kept the pace slow, as slow as Tony had kissed him, but he couldn’t keep the intensity from it. He’d watched Tony kiss Peter. He’d felt Peter kiss him back when they’d kissed. He wasn’t Peter. Tony hadn’t asked to be kissed by Peter. He’d asked to be kissed by him. And being kissed by him, even when it was slow, came with a bite. A smiling bite. A playful bite. A taunting bite. Very much a ‘are you gonna kiss me back?’ bite.

“It’s like that, huh, Pretty?” Tony said smiling.

Bucky leaned in and snagged Tony’s bottom lip in his teeth but didn’t bite. “Uh huh,” he said letting go, grinning.

Tony kissed Bucky deeply, desperately, with a wince of frustration. “Do you have _any idea_ how hard it was for me not to pull you up and taste me on those lips of yours?” He didn’t give him time to answer before his tongue was back in Bucky’s mouth. His hand went up into Bucky’s hair, his fingers firm, his hold solid. He slid their bodies closer together. Tony parted their lips and both gasped for breath before he claimed Bucky’s mouth again. 

Peter pressed himself against Tony’s back. He buried his face in his hair and moaned, grinding against him. 

Tony broke his kiss with Bucky and reached his arm back.

“Don’t you dare fuckin’ stop,” Peter groaned. He moved Tony’s hand back to Bucky and slid up higher on the bed where he could watch as he rocked his hips against Tony’s back. 

“All right, Beautiful,” Tony said as Bucky looked up at Peter with his eyes twinkling.”Oh no, Pretty. You don’t get to kiss him again yet. I’m not done with you.” Tony’s kiss was fierce. “You have absolutely no business having lips like that,” Tony growled. 

He started out slow. Or tried to. Wanted to. _Maybe_ wanted to. Nope. He hooked his leg high over Bucky’s and pulled them together as his next kiss came hot. Tony tangled their legs together, seemingly at random but entirely not. He used the leverage to jerk Bucky off balance and land him on his back with Tony on top of him. Tony watched the instinct play across his face. He nippd Bucky’s lip and kissed him lightly. “Unh unh, Pretty. Not in here. That belongs to _me_ in here.” 

He heard Peter whimper from his perch at the top of the bed. Peter, his spider, knew what _that_ was about. “Gimme.” Tony pinned Bucky’s wrists to the bed. He felt the start of a struggle. “Unh unh. This isn’t like that. I’m not gonna fight you for it. Not even play fight.” He kissed Bucky hard. “Give it to me.” 

Peter wasn’t the only one who whimpered that time at the sound of Tony’s voice. He kissed Bucky harder. He kissed him longer. He let go of his wrists and Bucky’s arms went around his chest. He held, like Peter’s did, just on the edge of using too much of his strength… but not. Tony kissed him again. Repeatedly. Bringing their bodies tightly together. 

He knew Bucky felt the hard circle of metal against his chest. Tony felt the pressure of the arc reactor’s housing move slightly within him. He felt a little frisson of electricity run through him from that movement the way it always did when he held Peter that close.

Bucky gasped when he caught a breath. He moaned around Tony’s tongue as it touched and tangled with his. When Tony flipped them both it took everything he had to remember where he was. Anyone who pulled a move like that was hurt. Badly. There was something to having his body moved in that way… when it wasn’t in a fight… when it wasn’t by a handler… when it wasn’t by someone who was going to hurt him when they… did what Bucky so desperately wanted Tony to do.

Oh. And Tony noticed. _That_ was exciting. Sometimes when he and Steve were in bed together things got physical. Little struggles that always ended very pleasantly. But it was too often a struggle, a playful struggle, but a struggle between them.

Oh. And Tony noticed. Bucky tensed when he was pinned to the bed. It was so brief because almost before he could register what happened, Tony was kissing him again. When Tony was kissing him — it was such a totally unbelievable response — Bucky didn’t want to fight. Neither the world or himself.

The way Tony kissed him, nothing could register but _want._ Tony’s kisses were _endless._ They weren’t a means to a goal, they were a means unto themselves. it felt like Tony wouldn’t mind if nothing but kissing and touching lasted _hours._

And there was that other thing. That thing they shared that no one else did. The way their bodies had been… changed. The powerlessness of how it happened but the power that came with now. The feelings he had were complicated. He imagined they were complicated for Tony. From Tony’s response, it certainly seemed so. He kinda _really_ liked being with someone who _understood._

And holy fuck…

“You like breaking men as well,” Bucky said with a grin.

Peter laughed. Tony rolled over and pulled one into each arm, trying hard not to look _too_ self-satisfied.

“You’re insufferable,” Peter said rolling his eyes as he smiled.

Tony pulled Peter partially on top of him. He ran his fingertip along the side of his face and cupped the back of his neck. “Yeah, well I don’t _have_ to do this…” He brought Peter into a long, slow building, repeated, deep kiss. And when Peter’s whimper grew high pitched and one of his hands wrapped between Tony’s back and the pillows, and the other reached to slide across Bucky’s back… Tony didn’t let him up but started all over again. More passionate and intense, and _tender._ Until there weren’t just whimpers and moans, Peter was squirming and rocking his hips against him, and _clutching._ Right on the edge of too hard, like Bucky had done. Gently, with smaller, calming kisses, he eased Peter down to the place by his side that he’d been. 

“I mean if you _object_ to it so much…” Tony smiled softly at Peter. “I don’t _have_ to kiss Beautiful…” He pulled Bucky in closer and smiled at him too. “…And Pretty _that_ way, y’know.”

“You stop and I’ll web you to the ceiling,” Peter teased, putting a light kiss on Tony’s lips.

“And I’ll hold you there for him to do it,” Bucky said smiling before he followed Peter’s kiss with one of his own just the same.


	10. Brooklyn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “My boyfriends are super-villains,” Peter said giggling. “I’m the only pure innocent one in this place.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, let's try this again. 
> 
> I posted this chapter Friday, like it was supposed to be, and then found an absolutely _massive_ amount of serious mistakes. So I deleted it and spent the day fixing them. 
> 
> So here's Chapter 10, take 2.

“I _hate_ being the only person in this house that gets hungry,” Peter said, breaking their post-kiss snuggling session.

Bucky laughed. “I’ll cook.”

“Menus. By. The fridge. I am not waiting for one of Pretty’s delicious, but time consuming, Depression meals.”

Bucky climbed out of bed and started pulling his shirt on.

Tony shrugged. “If you want,” he said, climbing out of bed and not bothering to put his clothes back on. Bucky didn’t either.

Peter pulled his jeans on. “Not all of us are exhibitionists, Tony.”

“My body is a fuckin’ gift and you are blessed to see it,” he answered as he headed to the kitchen. To get the menus.

Bucky raced past him for the bedroom door, poking him in the stomach as he passed. _“My_ body is a fuckin’ gift. _You_ need to work out with me.”

“I’m going on fifty,” Tony defended.

“I’m in my second century. I’m cooking. I can only eat so much Asian food and pizza in a month.”

“Don’t let the teenager order dinner. He refuses to let any restaurant that doesn’t normally deliver make an exception for the billionaire in the house.”

“It’s not fair,” Peter argued, speeding past both of them using his spider abilities. He settled on the kitchen stool, waiting to see who would get to the kitchen next: Tony to the menu drawer or Bucky to the stove.

“You are depriving whatever poor waiter Molly sticks with bringing me dinner of a ridiculously huge tip,” Tony said, tossing the menu for Marea on the counter. “Touch that stove, Bucky, and I swear…”

Bucky picked up the menu. “So what’s Molly’s Place have to offer?”

Tony sputtered. “I’d tell Michael what you said, but I value my permanent reservation at his restaurant too much. It’s Marea and it’s the best restaurant in the city.”

Bucky looked at the menu. “Billionaire, right?” he asked, grinning.

“Leave me a few pennies in the bank account,” Tony said.

“Il branzino, il caulini e l'antipasto, il di manzo.”

Tony’s eyebrows headed for the ceiling.

“I’m fluent in Italian, Spanish, Catalan, French, German, Finnish, Hungarian, Romanian, Czech, Serbian, Russian, Chechen, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Arabic. Oh yeah, and English. All accentless except for English. Now that I’m me again, I can’t get the Brooklyn out of it.”

Tony hooked his arm around Bucky’s neck and kissed him. “I can live with the Brooklyn,” he said, happy that Bucky wouldn’t ever speak unaccented English again.

“And I was impressed by your Italian, French, Spanish, Russian, and Chinese!” Peter said.

Bucky shrugged. “He wasn’t involved in the overthrow of as many governments as I was.”

Peter burst out laughing, then caught himself. “I shouldn’t find that funny, huh?”

Tony chuckled. “Yeah, Pete. It’s fuckin’ hilarious.” He winked at Bucky. “Maybe not as many, but it’s a non-zero number.”

“You’re both awful!” Peter said, a smile still on his lips. “Wait. You didn’t,” he asked Tony, more seriously.

“Sometimes privatizing world peace is a less than honorable pursuit. And do you think the same people are running Afghanistan as were before my visit there? Not an official government on that one, but it counts.”

“Sorry. That mess was my fault,” Bucky said sheepishly.

“I’m sure he did a lot for Russia there, Pretty, but not arm the damn Taliban. That would be Howard and then me after your dead twin brother put me in charge. So yeah, Pretty,” Tony smiled, “a non-zero number.”

“My boyfriends are super-villains,” Peter said giggling. “I’m the only pure innocent one in this place.”

“Why do you think we keep you around,” Tony said.

“That’s why we keep you around,” Bucky said, almost in unison. They high-fived. And found their hands stuck together with webs.

“Where did you…” Tony said in shock.

Peter chuckled. “Bucky… how many guns do you have hidden in the penthouse?”

“A… lot,” Bucky said sheepishly.

“Tony,” Peter said in a sing-song. “How many of those bracelet thingys do you have laying around in case the micro-repeaters stop working?”

“Um… like he said.”

“Do you think I only have _two_ webshooters?” Peter laughed.

“Get us out of this,” Tony said, irritatedly. “I have to call and order dinner.”

“I can do it.” Peter picked up a phone.

“I am not going to listen to you mangle the Italian language, kid. Get your super-villain boyfriends out of this. Or we’ll kidnap you and take you to our secret lair.”

“Wait,” Bucky said, “that sounds like fun.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Tony grinned.

“Yeah. It does,” Peter chimed in. “When I’m not fuckin’ starving! Karen, hit them with the dissolving fluid.” He aimed his hand at Bucky and Tony’s joined wrists.

Tony’s left eyebrow questioned him.

“Tony… of course I can move Karen to my webshooters like you move FRIDAY to your glasses. If you want your proprietary tech to stay proprietary, stop letting FRIDAY do everything for you.”

“He’s…?” Bucky started, incredulously.

“A genius? Yeah. Gonna put me out of a job. Give me the goddamn phone.”

“Nope,” Bucky made a grab for it. “I am not gonna listen to _you_ mangle the Italian language.”

Which led to a string of cursing in said language as Peter facepalmed. “I am never going to eat.”

~~~~~

“That wasn’t Italian,” Bucky said as they finished dinner.

“Of course it was. I mean I _am_ fond of Gargulio’s for old times sake, but Marea’s better.”

“Not the food,” Bucky said, making a dive for the last of the desert.

Tony laughed. “Not exactly Italian. But you didn’t speak it when you went to Gargulio’s did you?”

“Italian? Fuck, I could _maybe_ manage proper English.”

“You would’ve heard the difference. It’s Napoletano. Like your English can’t lose Brooklyn? My Italian can’t lose Naples because I learned it from my mom.”

“She was actually _from_ Italy?” Bucky said, still hesitant to bring up the subject.

Tony nodded. “She came here to go to university. An unexpected _me_ put an end to it.”

“I’m sorry,” Bucky said quietly, looking down.

“Why? Did you kill her?” Tony asked.

“Yeah.”

“You gotta stop taking credit for his bullshit, Pretty.” Tony reached out and brushed Bucky’s hair back then lifted his chin, turning his face to him. “When those words were said, were you _you?”_

“I did it.”

“Not what I asked. Before 1945, would you have done that?”

“Never.”

 _“You_ didn’t kill her, Bucky.”

Tears welled in Bucky’s eyes. His jaw clenched as he tried to keep them back. Tony ran the backs of his knuckles lightly across his temple and his tears fell.

Tony scooted his chair next to Bucky’s. “You didn’t kill her.” He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against the side of Bucky’s head. He closed his eyes and his own tears silently fell.

Peter watched the moment pass between them. Tony’s mom’s death was something that had weighed heavily on him his whole life. He was finally getting closure. How could he be jealous of that? They needed each other right then. Peter stood and both men looked at him. He walked around the table and put kisses on top of, first Tony’s, then Bucky’s heads. “Take Bucky to bed,” he said tenderly. “I’m gonna go study.”

“Baby,” Tony said, looking up. He pinched the bridge of his nose after sliding his fingers over his eyes to wipe the tears. “Do you mind?” he asked Peter quietly.

“Not even a little,” Peter said. “Take him to bed.” He paused and brushed his fingers through Bucky’s hair.

~~~~~

“C’mere, Pretty,” Tony said. Their tearful moment past, he felt playful. He turned Bucky and pushed his back gently against the closed door. He draped his arms around Bucky’s neck and chuckled. “Peter’s shorter than me.”

Bucky stood straighter.

Tony rolled his eyes. “Fine!” He pulled himself up on Bucky’s shoulders, stood on tiptoes, and kissed him.

“Not used to taller guys?” Bucky grinned.

“Not in awhile, no.”

“Problem?”

“You’re shorter than me laying down, Pretty,” Tony said with a smirk, standing flat on his feet. He dropped his voice to a whispered purr. “And when I’m on top of you.”

“Fuck,” Bucky said on a long breath.

“Problem?” Tony asked as he grabbed Bucky’s hands and led him to the bed. They rolled facing each other, Tony on his left side, Bucky on his right.

“I’m used to being the most charming, smug, and seductive one in the bedroom, that’s all,” Bucky said laughing.

Tony kissed the laugh off his lips. He brushed Bucky’s hair back. “I love that sound, Pretty.”

Bucky ducked his head, resting his forehead on Tony’s chest. Who _was_ taller than him laying down. “You asked me something when we were all talking earlier.” He put a light kiss on the square inch of skin underneath his lips.

“Hmm? And?”

“Yes, I am.”

“I know, baby,” Tony said tenderly. He’d watched it happen, Bucky slowly fall in love. When he settled into it, it made Tony realize his own love. Feeling actual love for _anyone_ was new, brought out by Peter. Feeling love for Bucky, just as deep but different and needing both, was entirely outside of his experience.

“Will Peter mind?”

“I’m pretty sure Peter already knows. He’s just scared because he’s younger.”

“You’re younger than me.”

“I mean, being an adult. He’s not, but he’s more than just a kid. I kinda toss an extra five years or so on him from the shit he’s been through.”

“About the same age I enlisted,” Bucky nodded. “That’s about how he feels.” He paused. “I love him, too.”

“I know that. And both of us love you. Not just because you give great head.”

“Tony,” he said in mock complaint.

“Most seductive _and_ tallest,” he said, tilting Bucky’s face _up_ for a kiss.

Bucky laughed. “And I thought you were _tickling_ Peter when I heard you two laughi… Oh fuck… He can hear us!”

“Not yet, but I’m gonna fix that,” Tony purred. He ran his palm slowly down Bucky’s chest until he reached his waist. He stopped briefly at the button of his jeans before unfastening it.

It took some entirely unseductive wiggling around before they were both naked and in each other’s arms again. Bucky’s kisses were biting and hot. Tony’s were possessive and deep. Their hands clutched and pulled. It was very much _closer, tighter, harder, now!_

“I know you like riding me,” Tony said, struggling to catch his breath. “Do you like it on your back?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Bucky said, rather flatly.

“Not what I asked.” Tony rolled himself on top of Bucky. He reached his arms under Bucky’s shoulders and slid himself up along the man’s body. “Baby, that’s something you gotta get used to with me.”

“You talk too fuckin’ much during sex?”

“Okay, that’s _two_ things you gotta get used to with me.”

“The leftovers of your fuckin’ Long Island accent make three?” Bucky grinned and bit again.

“All right, Brooklyn. Since you aren’t objecting…”

Tony found the lube under the pillow he always put it under and kissed Bucky through the awkwardness of doing so. One-handed he managed to squeeze enough of a dollop onto his hand to reach between them and stroke Bucky’s cock. He didn’t play, but directly went for things he’d discovered by rubbing him through his pants.

“Fuck,” Bucky panted, eyes wide at how fast he’d gotten so far.

Tony rubbed precome and lube over the head of Bucky’s cock. “Oh baby, that is… Fuck me, you’re gorgeous when you’re getting gone.”

 _“Getting?_ You’re gonna make me come.”

“I’m not gonna make you come before I’m ready to.” Tony took his hand off of Bucky’s cock, reached beneath his balls and slid his still-slick hand between his cheeks. The tip of his forefinger circled his rim and Bucky pushed down against it.

“Greedy,” Tony said, nipping his lip.

With only _slightly_ less finesse than he’d done before — dammit! he and Peter were going to have to compare notes! — Tony coated his finger with lube and worked it inside of Bucky. “I’m not your fuckin’ child bride, Tony.”

“Ya ever think that I wanna do this because I…” Tony slipped another finger inside, “…like watching you?” He spread his fingers apart and slid his third in between them. “Fuck…” Tony moaned, watching the way Bucky moved when his fingers pressed up.

“What?” Bucky asked before he lost the ability to speak. From where he was lying… gasping… writhing… groaning… Tony wasn’t getting anything out of it.

 _“That,_ Pretty. That’s what I want. If I just want to get off, I can do that on my own.” Tony slid down a little which let his fingers push in deeper. They made Bucky gasp again. “This…” Tony breathed over his nipple before touching the tip of his tongue to it. Bucky’s breath caught. “…I only get with _you.”_

“From another person, you mean.”

Tony combined the movement of his fingers and the slow, wet drag of his lips across Bucky’s nipple. Bucky tried to move away from the overstimulation, but was held by Tony’s other hand on his shoulder. He could break free, easily, but he didn’t.

“I meant what I said, Bucky.” He dragged his open mouth down Bucky’s abs. The other man rolled his body up to meet his mouth. Kissing up the center of his body from his navel, Tony’s tongue swirled around the divot of his collarbone,

Bucky nearly came off the bed when Tony entered him. His back arched and Tony’s hands pulled him down, deeper onto his cock. He only thought about it after he’d cried out, but there was no way Peter didn’t hear _that._

Tony pulled back with a long slow drag until he was almost entirely out of Bucky. Tony snapped his hips upward as he pushed hard and deep inside. Both hands on either side of Bucky’s head, his fingers tangled in his hair. He kissed him again, slow and soft, His thrusts were slow and long. He leaned up and whispered in Bucky’s ear. “I wanna _learn_ you, Bucky.”

Bucky’s whimpers were nothing like Peter’s. Those were high, desperate, and pleading. Bucky’s broke into little short breaths, low and rising only at the very end. They started out demanding but Tony made them fall into begging.

Bucky groaned, his body broke out in a fine sweat, as Tony was managing to drive him fucking nuts with the way his thick cock scraped just the right way inside of him. Enough to get him hot but nothing more. Enough to make him _need._

“Oh god!” Bucky cried out when Tony stopped playing and started fucking him _hard._ Not fast, but hard. He hadn’t realized that the two things could be separated. Bucky pushed down onto Tony’s cock. “Oh fuck Tony!” I didn’t…” His words were unintelligible. Broken on a rising moan. “That… could…” His attempt to make sense was lost to a loud cry. His cock dripped precome onto his belly.

“Around my waist now, baby,” Tony crooned and Bucky hooked his ankles across each other on Tony’s back. Tony stretched himself out over the taller man, pulling himself deeper as he slid up. Bucky’s heels dug in.

“Oh fuck, Pretty,” Tony moaned, his dark eyelashes fluttering. He snapped his hips sharply, seeking the depth that the new angle gave him. Tony reached up over Bucky’s right shoulder, and threaded his fingers into his long hair, holding his arm still, unable to move. But he said, “Hold me, baby.”

“Tony, no. I can hurt you.” Bucky realized that Tony meant for him to hold with his left arm.

He thrust in hard again. “Hold me, Bucky.” He kept Bucky’s right arm pinned with his elbow on the mattress under his arm, and Tony reaching up still into his hair.

Hesitantly, Bucky wrapped his left arm around Tony’s chest.

Tony kept a regular rhythm, deep and hard but not fast. He ached to go faster. Being inside Bucky was nothing like Peter. He knew Bucky could take it rougher. His body was used to responding to rougher. Tony hated knowing how that adaptation came about. He wasn’t going to blend himself into the body-memory that Bucky had of those times. So no matter how much his Pretty’s responses made him want to go faster, he stayed _slow._

“Please…” Bucky moaned on a broken breath.

“Please what baby?”

“Faster. _Please.”_

“Mm hmm,” Tony purred as he dragged his lips, wet, open mouthed, across the stubble on Bucky’s sharply defined jaw. He went no faster.

“To _ **ny,”**_ Bucky drew out the name on a moan low in his throat.

“Mm hmm?” His thrusts were shallow, deep, and kept Bucky filled. The hand in Bucky’s hair lifted his head to where he could kiss him. It was Tony who bit, held Bucky’s lip in his teeth, and sucked. He nipped sharply and let go. As he did, the snap of his hips finally went faster. Tony felt the fingers of Bucky’s left hand dig into the muscle on his side. Then he heard the faint electromechanical whir of his arm’s strength being pulled back even as the man groaned, distracted with the pleasure of finally being fucked faster.

He released his hold on Bucky’s right arm and moved the man’s hand between them. He waited until Bucky wrapped it around his cock before he sucked his earlobe into his mouth. “Not yet,” he whispered.

Bucky’s eyes opened and he was about to say something when he saw Tony’s smirk. “Oh, fuck you,” he groaned.

Tony laughed softly. His words stuttered. “You can do it now… make yourself come… whenever you want. _Or_ you can wait…” Tony’s smirk returned. “Gets better. Your… choice.”

“Fuckin’ hate you.” The whining moan Bucky made when Tony scraped his teeth along his neck and bit where it curved into his shoulder, proved his words a lie.

Bucky took his hand off of his cock entirely and out from between their bodies. He put it flat on the bed. “Now you have a lot to live up to,” Bucky said, Tony’s smirk transferring to his face.

Tony leaned back more on his knees and balanced his left arm near Bucky’s waist. “Gimme that hand,” he said, reaching behind himself, floundering around for Bucky’s left hand. He leaned forward, holding it by the wrist once he had it. He growled in Bucky’s ear. “I _love_ you.”

Tony leaned back, pulling Bucky’s ass onto his haunches. When he rose up with his thighs, he fucked hard and deep. One hand was on his waist, urging him down to meet him. Bucky started pushing down to do that. Bucky was hot around him, the rocking movement and the man’s eagerness making him clench around Tony’s cock. Tony was groaning in pleasure, letting the powerful sensations distract him from the fear of what he was going to do. He took Bucky’s left hand and put it, flat palmed, on the center of his chest. The first test had been for Bucky. This one was for him. He was more deeply in love with Bucky than he wanted to admit. And Tony couldn’t love, not _really_ love, without trust.

Bucky’s eyes went wide. He was going to object, but when he looked up at him; he saw Tony’s eyes tightly close. He watched as Tony pulled his lips into his mouth and bit them shut. He saw the wince of remembered pain and fear. He saw the struggle on the man’s face as the present warred with the past. He watched the two fight to reconcile. But Tony never moved Bucky’s hand away from the most vulnerable part of his body.

The man he’d betrayed so deeply, giving him that level of trust was unbelievable. “Oh Tony,” Bucky breathed out, overcome. He ground himself down on Tony’s cock, needing to be closer, and was rewarded with the man increasing his pace, pounding into him hard, but without anger or wanting to cause anything but pleasure. Bucky fell into babbling when Tony was at the height of his thrust and, more often than not, managed to hit his prostate. “Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck…”

Tony kept his eyes closed as his hand held the back of Bucky’s hand. Instead of the metal fingers curling around the edges of the arc reactor, trying to hurt him, Bucky touched with nothing but the flat of his palm. He moaned, raised himself up and held in deep, feeling Bucky surrounding him. Tony’s fear finally broke and he let go of Bucky’s hand.

He listened to Bucky panting, fast and shallow — catching, holding, shuddering, letting go. Small deep groans that ended on another caught breath. Bucky’s legs dropped from around his waist and he pushed up with his feet on the mattress, adding his force that of Tony’s as they fucked. Tony pushed himself deeper, ground their hips together, filling Bucky with his entire length. He opened his eyes and looked down.

“Oh Pretty,” he moaned at the sight.

Tony lost himself in those blue eyes, dark with desire, eyelashes fluttering until his eyes closed. Bucky’s lips parted with his ragged breathing — full and swollen, flushed bright pink, wet and shining.

Bucky’s scream was low and loud. His eyes flew open as, untouched, his orgasm tore through him.

“That’s it, Bucky. Come for me, baby. Oh god… _oh fuck!”_

Tony groaned as his breath held. Both breath and release escaped at the same time. As he shuddered as he came and fell atop Bucky. He draped his arms over his shoulders, under his neck, and held on as the quakes passed through him.

Bucky wrapped his arms around Tony’s chest. They held each other as gasps settled into slow panting and then as their breaths evened out. Yet once they had, they still didn’t let go.

Tony took Bucky’s face in both his hands and kissed him tenderly. He saw the wetness on Bucky’s cheeks and felt it on his own. _“You_ are in control of you, Bucky.” He kissed him again. _“You_ did not kill my mom,” he said quietly

“How did you know I wouldn’t…” He looked down the space between them at Tony’s chest.

“I just knew,” Tony said, brushing the long, sweat damp strands from Bucky’s face.

“I could’ve killed you.”

“Uh huh.” He paused for another kiss. “So can Peter. But, Bucky, look,” Tony said, rolling onto his side. He took Bucky’s left hand and pressed his fingertips onto his side where he had grabbed him while they were fucking. “Are there any bruises?”

“No, but I didn’t try to hold you hard.”

“Yeah, you did. You didn’t hear it. You were too focused on something else,” he said with an over-confident smile. “But I heard it. I heard you pull it back. The way I can feel Peter doing the same thing.”

“I’ve torn the shit out of beds before. I could’ve hurt you.”

“And Peter breaks headboards and walls and shreds my sheets,” Tony said with a shrug.

“You’re crazy.”

Tony chuckled. “Maybe. I just have a fetish for guys who can break me into little pieces — and _don’t.”_ Definitely a fetish. Definitely a power rush of truly epic proportions.

“You made me come even after I stopped touching myself,” Bucky said smiling.

“He does that,” Peter said, coming into the bedroom. “A lot.”

“You give me too much credit, babe,” Tony said smiling as he noticed that Peter was _carrying_ his clothes instead of wearing them.

“I have a feeling he doesn’t.” Bucky, who was still on his back, more or less in the center of the bed, held his left arm open wide for Peter.

Peter crawled onto the bed and over to where Bucky was and settled in his open arm. Though he pulled part of a pillow under his head. Resting it directly on hard metal wasn’t exactly comfortable.

“God that was hot. I came so hard,” Peter said as he kissed Bucky’s chest. He ran his finger through the mess on his stomach. Looking first at Tony, then up at Bucky, he put his finger in his mouth, sucked it, and smiled.

Tony reached for the towel he kept under the same pillow as the lube. He wiped Bucky’s stomach clean. Both he and Bucky chuckled and shared a glance before turning to accuse Peter. “You were sitting outside the door, jerking off to us,” he said.

“Not through _all_ of it.” He curled up closer to Bucky, tangling their legs together. “I did get my studying done. Fast,” Peter added with a grin. “It was so different only listening. Having to use my imagination to _see.”_ He slid his arm across Bucky’s waist. “Bucky gets to be in the middle tonight. How do you like to sleep? Side, back, stomach?” Peter asked, looking up at him. “We used to sleep spooned,” he began, not saying who the other one of the ‘we’ was. Steve, obviously. “But on my back is more comfortable.” He hesitated. “Body habit.”

“On your back then,” Tony said. He’d seen the container tubes in Siberia that Bucky would’ve been put in, to sleep on his back. “Until your body decides on another habit,” he added with another little kiss to Bucky’s shoulder.

He balled up a pillow under his head and stretched out along Bucky’s side. Tony reached across Bucky’s stomach to hold Peter’s hand. Bucky’s right hand slipped up from between his side and Tony’s front, to join them.


	11. Han and Leia and Chewie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Joy, Beautiful. That’s something you give both of us. Neither of us ever had a lot of that in our lives before you. Heart,” Tony said, drawing a Valentine’s heart over Peter’s. “I know I can’t live without this one. Don’t think Bucky wants to live without it either.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Better late than never, right?" the author asked, sheepishly.
> 
> At least it's a long one this time. I've only got one chapter left to write, the final one already being done. Yes, I know that's a stupid way to write a story. And doing the chapters out of order always messes me up in the end. *sigh* But I always seem to mix them up somehow. Don't even ask me about the mixed up mess that is the next Red Light District or Victoria's Secret stories. OMG. I'm a dead man when it comes to untangling those. I'm a hopeless pantser with no self-control.

Bucky had already left for the day. He finished his debriefs a few days ago, but Fury was using him to weapons train the new recruits. He was also using him to root out any last bits of HYDRA lurking around SHIELD or elsewhere.

“Baby, c’mere,” Tony said smiling lazily shortly after FRIDAY woke them at eight.

“You’re going to make me miss my ten o’clock class again,” Peter said, putting up only a half-hearted protest as he came out of the bathroom, naked, drying himself off from his shower.

“It’s inorganic chemistry and lab. You can do both of those here with your text and the space I set up for you. I’ll promise to let you out of this bed in time to make your one o’clock differential equations.”

Peter laughed and climbed into bed. “You’re a bad influence.”

“Yeah, but at least I’m good at it.” Tony pulled Peter close and kissed him. “This right here,” he said, tangling his fingers through the boy’s damp, springy curls. “A big part of why you got your name, Beautiful. You look like a renaissance painting. Better,” he said, reaching down and cupping Peter’s cock and balls. “They always gave their men small cocks. Not enough for a horny Catholic boy to jerk off to after confession.”

Peter snorted. “You’re Catholic?”

“Was. I guess _technically_ I still am, since you have to write the Vatican and be taken off the rolls. I should do that.”

“Oh no you don’t. I have all _sorts_ of naughty priest/altar boy fantasies to play out.”

“You’re Catholic?” Tony said in disbelief. “Parker’s a pretty WASP name.”

“So’s Stark. But Fitzpatrick isn’t. That was my mom’s name.”

“Well, if the Vatican ever changes…”

Peter laughed.

“We can get married in the Church,” Tony said, grinning.

“Did you just propose to me?”

“Nope. Just speculating. We’re not even out yet, but you did turn eighteen.”

“I’d been thinking about how to do that, but…” Peter sighed. “Things got more complicated.”

“Yeah.”

“I kinda…” Peter hesitated.

“Me too.”

“You don’t know what I was going to say! You always do that!” Peter swatted Tony’s arm.

“You were going to say that you kinda love Bucky more than you thought you did.”

“Dammit Tony!” Peter rolled his eyes. “Yes.” He paused, realizing what Tony said. “You do too?”

Tony nodded. “Is that okay?”

“I was worried about you. You’re very possessive, you know,” Peter teased.

“News to me.” Tony smiled. “I just feel possessive about two of you now. But, while I love Pretty a whole lot more than I ever thought I would… you’re still it for me, Peter.”

Peter leaned up and gave Tony a kiss. “Same. But he’s more than just ‘a bit on the side’.”

“Entirely. Human language is imprecise enough as it is, it never had to deal with stuff like this before. Pair-bonding came along before language did. More efficient for perpetuating the species through child rearing.”

“I am _not_ having kids, Tony. By any means.”

“Fuck no.”

Peter breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh thank god. I thought that some day you’d be all like ‘I’m a famous billionaire my name must go on’.”

“I’ll be dead, why would I give a fuck about my name after I’m dead?”

“That’s either massively egotistical or massively not. I can’t figure out which.”

“It’s solipsistic. The world exists as what we experience. What we don’t, doesn’t exist.”

“So no kids. Thank god. But… while I love you so very different from Bucky… us coming out as a _couple,_ that cuts him out.”

“It isn’t what we’ve got here,” Tony agreed. It was his turn to kiss Peter. He took a little longer at it than the kid did. He couldn’t help it. Kissing was another of his fetishes.

“Do you mind waiting?”

Tony shrugged. “You were the one in a hurry.”

“I still am,” Peter said.

“How about ‘it happens when it happens’?”

“And _how_ it happens,” Peter added.

“Meaning?” Tony asked.

“If we get caught as being more than a couple, we don’t deny it.”

“That’s a big step.”

Peter shrugged. “When have you cared what the world thinks?”

Tony chuckled. “Other than legally, I don’t. But I’m not the only one who’s gonna take heat.”

“Table the discussion for now?”

“The three of us can pick away at it. But yeah, it’s gonna take more than just the two of us calling whatever reporter we want and telling them.”

“But you’re really okay?” Peter asked quietly.

“That’s my question,” Tony said and put a kiss on the tip of Peter’s nose. “Me and him… it’s not me and you. But it’s more ‘me and him’ than I thought it would be.”

“You have history with him.”

Tony watched Peter’s face closely. “I have history with you. Longer if you count the time that would’ve got me thrown in jail.”

Peter laughed. “I _do_ count the time that would’ve got you thrown in jail. I saw you looking at my ass entirely inappropriately.”

“Not my fault. You have a fine ass.”

“I had a _fifteen year old_ ass.”

“Fifteen with the body of a much older young man thanks to the spider.”

“’S okay. I forgive you. Means I don’t have to feel guilty about seeing a picture of you stepping out of the suit looking all suave in a tux being the cause of my middle school sexual awakening.”

“I did NOT need to know that,” Tony said laughing. He turned serious again and ran his fingertip along Peter’s arm. “The history thing, that bother you?

Peter thought about it and sighed. “Not the history thing,” he said, biting his lip. “The _adult_ thing. You’re both… and I’m not. I’m scared you’re gonna get tired of dealing with a teenager and want, y’know, a man instead.”

“There’s only one problem with that.”

Peter hummed in question.

“I happen to be entirely, madly, hopelessly in love with a teenager,” Tony said with a kiss.

“And you love Bucky more than you thought you would.” He paused. “He’s in love with you, I don’t care that he said he’s not sure. He is.”

“Yeah, I know. He knows. He told me.”

“Oh.” Peter’s voice was small.

“He also told me that he’s in love with you.”

“I doubt that.”

“You shouldn’t. You give him something he never had, baby.”

Peter’s hummed question sounded doubtful.

“Joy, Beautiful. That’s something you give both of us. Neither of us ever had a lot of that in our lives before you. Heart,” Tony said, drawing a Valentine’s heart over Peter’s. “I know I can’t live without this one. Don’t think Bucky wants to live without it either.”

“I love you,” Peter said.

“I know,” Tony answered, in a certain familiar way.

“Oh fuck you, Han.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of fucking you, Leia,” Tony said, rolling on top of Peter.

Peter grinned. “That makes us Han and Leia and Chewie. Because of the hair.”

Tony let out a high-pitched giggle. Peter took advantage and rolled him over, straddling his thighs. “Princesses get to be on top.” He slid forward to where their cocks were together. Still soft, he took both in his hand and started stroking them.

“Fuck, Pete,” Tony breathed out, his eyes fixed on Peter’s hand and their cocks together. It was a sight that always got to him.

Peter worked his hand up their shafts. Until they were both hard and one hand had to become two. Tony sucked in a sharp breath and his cock leaked enough precome that, mixed with his own, Peter was able to slick his hand to make the glide easier. He shifted his position to bring the heads on a level with each other so he could palm over both at the same time.

“All right, magic lube boy,” Peter said, teasing. He held out his hand, cupped upward. And Tony… like magic, damn him… found the lube under the pillow. “How do I not sleep on that?”

Tony chuckled. “Because you can’t sleep more than six inches away from the arc.” He squeezed a large dollop of lube onto Peter’s upturned palm.

“You have your fetishes,” Peter said, sliding his slick hand over both of them, but mostly over Tony. “I have mine.”

“You wouldn’t love us if we weren’t cyborgs…” Tony broke off his teasing with a sharp breath sucked between his teeth as Peter’s hand smoothed directly over the head of his cock.

Peter stopped touching himself and concentrated on slicking Tony up. He raised on his thighs and crept forward until he wasn’t sitting on Tony’s thighs but holding himself above the man’s cock. He reached behind, his hand circling Tony’s shaft and tried to settle straight down onto him but the angle wasn’t right. They hadn’t done it often with Peter on top, and when they had, Tony was sitting up, helping him.

“Lean forward, baby,” Tony suggested.

He couldn’t see how that would help, but Peter let go of Tony’s cock and started to fall forward. Instead of ending up on top of Tony, the man’s hands stopped his fall, reaching up to spread, palms wide, over Peter’s chest. It was harder to reach back, but when Peter slid down, it was perfect and Tony started to slip easily inside of him.

Peter slowly started to sit more upright, taking more of Tony’s cock into him. Tony moved his hands lower, caressing Peter’s sides firmly, letting him guide himself into position. He settled his hands low on Peter’s narrow waist, just above the boy’s hips, his thumbs slotting into the deep V lines. He didn’t rise up to thrust nor pull Peter down with his hands. He let Peter control everything this time.

“That’s it, Beautiful,” Tony said as Peter started to rise and fall rhythmically, his thighs tensing and relaxing, tight cords underneath smooth skin. Peter was achingly beautiful. His body had been transformed by the spider bite. The muscles, the strength… that was all spider. The flawless pale skin, the grace with which he moved, the way he moaned and his breath caught and then he’d cry out… that was all _Peter._

As was the confident, yet experimental, way Peter sought to make himself feel good. Peter’s hands grabbed Tony’s forearms, using them to balance, to push against, sliding down them to find the best angle as he rolled his hips, grinning when, in search of his own pleasure, he’d accidentally made Tony gasp instead. Clenching tightly, rising and then falling with another tight roll of his hips, his eyes were twinkling when Tony’s opened to meet his.

Tony’s revenge was simple. He stopped holding Peter’s waist, leaving the boy to find his own balance, which, frustratingly he did. But when he next rolled forward, Tony’s hands returned to Peter’s chest. He rarely had such an opportunity to appreciate that finely sculpted part of Peter’s body. He ran his palms over the kid’s pecs and his fingers found Peter’s nipples. He started gently rolling them between his thumb and forefinger. Peter whimpered. The gentle fondling became pinches and pulls, and Peter’s whimpers were broken and caught on rapidly panting breaths.

He knew what that did to the boy. Peter’s cock was jumping and the rise and fall on Tony’s stuttered. He was trying to plead with Tony but the words wouldn’t come out as anything but gasped letters. Finally, Tony found his hands swatted away with strong pushes to each of his arms. Peter glared at him and Tony wore a smug grin.

“Something wrong, Beautiful?” he teased.

“Yes, you bastard! You are not gonna make me come by playing with my poor abused nipples again!”

Tony chuckled. “You are the only one I’ve ever seen do that. Those cute little things are directly wired to your cock, baby. How can I resist?”

Peter rocked forward with a slow grind of his hips. Tightening around Tony’s cock, he dragged his body up, milking the man. He loosened and fell back down, until he was flat against Tony’s pelvis. With Tony buried all the way inside of him, Peter reached behind and cupped the man’s balls, gently rolling them, giving them a light little squeeze, running a single fingertip, pressing firmly, beneath them. Tony groaned and his eyes closed and his hips rose, trying to push himself deeper into Peter.

“Baby, how can I resist?” Peter said, with a smug grin when he stopped and Tony met his eyes.

Peter leaned forward, holding himself at just the right angle. When he began his rise and fall on Tony’s cock, he rode in short, shallow strokes, having found the perfect position and depth to give himself pleasure.

Tony watched in amazement as Peter earned his nickname. His curly hair was a sweat-damp springy mess, falling forward, clinging to his forehead. His body glistened in the morning light coming through the huge windows of their bedroom. The kid’s muscles… so fucking strong, no strain or falter no matter the fact that they’d been working at his ride. Gracefully, he rolled his body, thighs to shoulders, the shudder arching his back in a belly dancer’s writhe as he gasped.

And Peter’s face… Tony couldn’t concentrate at all on how the kid was making his cock feel, because the kid’s face… dear lord, Tony was lost. Peter’s eyes were closed, the lids smooth and pale, lashes long and, when he’d hit his movements just right, they fluttered like butterfly wings. The pink flush on his cheeks was dark and shining with sweat. The heat of it ran all the way down his neck. But it was his mouth that caught and held Tony’s eye. Slack and parted, his white teeth a line beneath them, his lips were licked and bitten, puffy and glistening from his tongue darting across their swell.

Tony moaned just from looking at his Beautiful. His. Shared, but that didn’t seem to matter because he loved who Peter was shared with. The idea of having his perfect boy beloved, not just by him but by Bucky as well, almost made it better. Knowing that there was another person who would be as stunned by this sight. His reaction to the thought surprised him. He was always so possessive of Peter. But as he watched the boy shudder through another wave of pleasure and his moan become a cry of Tony’s name, he realized he was still just as possessive as ever. Only he possessed two treasures, one Beautiful and one Pretty. They both were his.

“Oh fuck, Peter,” Tony moaned and put his hands on the boy’s hips. Not controlling his rise and fall, just holding, just feeling the heat of Peter’s skin on his fingers. “Baby… oh fuck yes. Go on, Beautiful. Touch that gorgeous, cock of yours. I wanna see your hand on it. You’re so hard. Your cock’s dripping on me. Make yourself come, baby. I wanna see you. I want you all over me. God Peter, you are a sight.”

Peter whimpered as Tony spoke. The man’s voice was husky and low, crooning out words of praise. Peter’s hand wrapped around his cock and he rocked his hips into the circle of it. His ride faltered a moment as he hunted for a new movement that would mix both actions into one irresistible spike of pleasure. His gasp strained with his held breath, body tight with the rise of it, held still at the height of his stroke for what seemed like forever, but was only a moment, before it broke and he fell. “Oh… fuck! Oh… oh… Tony!” He screamed as he came over Tony. Almost immediately he fell on top of the man, shuddering and quaking. Peter slid his arms along Tony’s sides, under his arms, his hands clutching upwards over Tony’s shoulders. This time not a cry, but an almost frightened whisper, “Tony.”

Tony wrapped his arms around Peter, solid, comforting. His cock was still hard as Peter slid off of him to be high enough up his body to bury his face in the crook of his neck. Flat palmed, Tony soothed down Peter’s back. “I have you, Pete. Always have you. Right here, Beautiful. Not ever letting go.” He kissed the side of Peter’s head and he clung almost as tightly to the boy as Peter clung to him, although his strength wasn’t a match. His shoulders would be bruised with little circles from Peter’s fingertips, longer lines from his fingers. He never minded the marks. Tony liked seeing the signs of Peter’s need on his body. His power, but restrained, even as far gone as the boy had been, he still pulled it back.

“Baby, you’re my forever,” he whispered into Peter’s ear. Tony’s fingers carded softly through Peter’s wet and tangled curls. “My forever, Peter.”

“Oh, I love you, Tony,” Peter said, his lips moving over the man’s neck as his body finally began to still. His hand gentled over where the bruises he left would rise on Tony’s shoulder. He was always so frightened of them, afraid that one day he’d hold on too tightly and hurt Tony. But he never did. He didn’t understand how that worked or why. But he never hurt him.

Peter slid up just a little bit more and kissed behind Tony’s ear. He whispered it again. “Baby, I love you.”

Tony’s breath caught. Such a beautiful, fragile, gentle thing in his arms. How could he love him? But Peter found something inside of him that was worth loving. There was still something there.

He rolled them to their sides, messy between them. Tony’s cock softened, forgotten. He reached down, pulling them both up off the mattress for a moment, until he grasped the bedcover and pulled it up over Peter’s cooling body. Laying back down on the bed, his lips found Peter’s. Softly, tenderly, they kissed over and over. Tony sucked that beautiful red, swollen, bitten bottom lip into his mouth and gently sucked on it, licking across it, teasing it’s sensitivity until Peter sighed into his kiss.

At eleven fifteen they were awakened by FRIDAY’s announcement that if Peter wanted to make his one pm differential equations class, he needed to get up and get ready.

Peter smiled and gave Tony a light kiss. “You wake up too or you’re gonna fuck your sleeping up.”

Tony sighed, knowing that Peter was right, even though all he wanted to do was pull that duvet over himself and sleep. “Go get your shower.” He sat up, knowing if he stayed laying down, all his good intentions to wake up would be lost.

“I swear, if I come home and find you asleep…”

Tony laughed. “Nope. Not doing that ever again. You threatened me with ice water before you left and you fucking did it, you menace.” He watched as Peter crawled across his crazy huge bed, which he knew was a crazy huge bed and that’s why he liked it. “Keep wiggling that ass at me and I won’t let you up until time for your three o’clock physics class.”

Peter looked over his shoulder and stuck out his tongue at Tony, then pushed off with his arms, jumping up and flipping in mid-air until he landed on his feet between the bed and the bathroom. “I cannot miss _that_ class,” he said, heading for the shower.

“Yeah, I know. You better make up that ninety-three on your last test with your final. Do you know how embarrassing it would be for me to have a boyfriend who didn’t hit the mark in _physics?”_

“Shut the fuck up, Tony,” Peter said as FRIDAY turned on the water and he got under it. “You make me want to flunk and then tell my professor that you gave me all the wrong information and the only reason you got your PhD in physics was because you blew your advisor.”

“I did, but my dissertation acceptance had nothing to do with that. Though maybe fucking the dean might’ve helped,” Tony said, flushing the toilet after signaling FRIDAY to not adjust the water temperature for the pressure drop.

Peter’s yelp was extremely satisfying.

**Author's Note:**

> My Starker blog on tumblr is [starker-stories](https://starker-stories.tumblr.com/).  
> Come on by and visit.


End file.
